


Multi-verse

by starkraving



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Justice League & Justice League Unlimited (Cartoons), Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, Superman - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, characters and archive warnings to be added as needed
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2017-03-08
Packaged: 2018-07-12 12:00:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7102345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starkraving/pseuds/starkraving
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alternate universe where Kal-El’s baby pod comes down behind Wayne Manor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The sky is on fire.

Or, at least, for a moment the whole and total of his vision as he looks up is fire and as the nuclear bright burn lights up his retinas, Bruce Wayne thinks it wouldn’t be so bad – being annihilated into the grave dirt behind Wayne manor. A crater in the grass by the tomb stones.

Alfred wouldn’t have to bury him that way.  

But it doesn’t happen. The fire streaks over the low boughs of the willow bent by the grave plot, breaking into a dozen molten orange tails. A large core piece the shape of a minnow rips over the southern slopes of the estate, lighting up the sky for an instant, then impacting at the edge of the trees. Above: the sky is alight with meteorites, hundreds of them, burning up in high atmo and screaming down through the thin ozone layer to arc unknown trajectories toward Gotham. It’s beautiful. Like the indifference of an A-bomb as it lights up the world.

Across the field, the grass is burning. The fallen meteor smolders silver. And the shape, like a minnow, seems less accidental now. A design, the body of the pod finned with three ornate stabilizing foils that fan and fold, as if trying to swim still. It spits gas and greenish flame from cracked seams in the paneling. Too hot to touch. The air around it ripples with heat so Bruce fists Thomas Wayne’s old leather jacket – the one he’s been wearing for three years now – around his hands and uses it to grab the end of the domed wind-shield. He heaves on it, one foot braced against the hot metal. The burning rubber stink stinging his throat, the bottom of his shoes heating up. He can hear screaming. It was the screaming that made him run. The _screaming_ –

“I’ll get you out!” He yanks again, the splintered dome giving slightly, peeling up from its mooring in the ship’s frame. His fingers burn. “Hold on! Just hold on, I’ve got you! I’ve got –!”

The blast-shield gives and, because Bruce used every adrenaline-fueled ounce of strength he possessed, he immediately flops backwards off the ship and hits the ground on his spine. The freed shield goes skidding.  For an instant: stars, the sky breaking apart in chunks or orange and green. An alien world in pieces having streaked unfathomable distances through time and space, cutting past stars and other galaxies and ending, finally, over the city of Gotham.

Bruce scrambles back up, lurching toward the ship. He tosses the smoking jacket. His fingers shine bright blistered red. Semi-cauterized gashes across the insides of his palm. His hands shake as he reaches into the pod.

The interior of the pod smells strange, sweet and metallic. ( _Poisonous maybe. Another world. Viral pathogens. Could kill me. Could –!)_ Someone’s painted little pictures along the inside of the pod wall: primary colors by hand, soft, round, maybe animals.  Layered symbols. ( _Alien. Alien. It’s alien.)_ The deep red fabric lining the inside of the vessel weighs heavy, soft, and liquid in his hand as he grabs it up around its cargo. Bruce can hear himself saying over and over, “It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s fine. I’m fine. It’s fine.”

The toddler ( _alien_ ) in his arms just cries and clings to his neck.

Bruce wraps them in blanket, wadding the big swath of fabric around ( _him? her?)_ the child but it does nothing to sooth the wet agonized wailing. Bruce hugs them, gathering them up, cradling their dark curly-haired head in his palm. Skull so small his fingers fit it comfortably – feathery soft curls. Their narrow chest against his, tiny ribs beneath his fingers, a heartbeat fast and hot against his sternum. He sprints toward the mansion, sneakers skidding in the muddy grass. His blood runs freely from his gashed hands now. It’s in the toddler’s hair and on the toddler’s shimmery blue baby tunic. The toddler from the space ship is still screaming. The toddler squeezes tighter, is burying their face in his shoulder. The screams are unbearable but muffled.

“Alfred!” Bruce throws his shoulder against the massive front door, feels the bones in his upper back bruise, then trips to his knees in the foyer. “Alfred, I need help.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Is he going to be okay?”

“I have no earthy idea, Master Wayne.”

“He’s breathing funny.”

“If what you say is true, and this child emerged from that craft behind the house, then it’s likely he is not human. We have no idea if this atmosphere is even appropriate for his species. At this point there is… not much I can imagine to do for him.”

“He was… crying before.”

“Master Wayne, will you please let me bandage your other hand now?”

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not fine. It is burned and going to be infected and more to the point - - we have no idea what you’ve been exposed to since you pulled open an _extraterrestrial spacecraft_.”

“I’m sorry.”

Alfred cannot be certain to whom Bruce is apologizing. He’s looking at the child. The lights flicker and dim, the reserve generators kicking on. Outside, parts of Gotham burn, sections of the city cratered by semi-radioactive debris howling down from the skies. Alfred cannot be sure what sounds are the impact of meteorites and what is the boom of transformers blowing. The unending wail of police sirens carries up from the city to the estate.

“I think I should get another blanket.”

“You’ll do no such thing. You will sit here and let me clean that burn and we will pray that this child survives the night. That is the end of it.”

Bruce, arrested mid-motion, sits back down on bed. Alfred uses the moment of uncertainty to nab Bruce’s other wrist and pull it into his lap. Once there, he gingerly rinses the blisters in a shallow basin of soapy water, gently wiping at the dirt and grit blackening the cuts across his fingers. No broken blisters. Just gashes from the pressure, partially cauterized. That would scar. Alfred dresses the wounds in ointment and clean gauze.  Bruce ignores the process, staring fixedly at the rise and fall of the child’s chest, rapid and shallow, ragged with phlegm. Since they brought him to the house, he’s become feverish and asthmatic.

To Alfred and any other bystander it would appear they have a very sick little boy curled up beneath the comforter of the master bedroom. He could be a relative: dark hair, blue eyes (incredibly blue, skies over Kansas wheat fields blue), skin a bit darker than a Wayne, but nothing a cousin couldn’t claim. The red blanket from the ship remains coiled under his cheek, a chilled wash cloth set hopefully on top of his alien head.

“What do we do if he dies?” Bruce says this so quietly Alfred almost misses it.

“I think the better question,” says Alfred firmly, “is what to do if he _lives_.” He gives Bruce his newly bandaged hand back. “You pulled him from the wreckage. We know nothing about him. Nothing of his origins, but circumstances would strongly suggest genuine non-terrestrial origin. That being the case, we cannot simply turn him over to child services and –”

“We’re not giving him to anyone.”

“I wasn’t suggesting that we do.”

“He’s an alien. If we turn him over to anyone there’s no telling what they’ll do. We can’t do that.”

“Yes, but they might be better equipped to care for him. We can only do so much with –”

“No.”

Alfred sighs. “Distrust of the government, not withstanding, you’re committing to both _concealing an alien life form_ and, potentially, having to fabricate a story in which a child suddenly appearing in the life of Bruce Wayne is not strange.”

“I have money,” he says, as though that resolves the issue. And, yes, it does, but not so simply.

“You’re also sixteen, Master Wayne.”

“We can hide him until I’m old enough to take on a ward, or adopt. No one can question my ability to provide means. He can be an illegitimate half-brother. He could be my son. Whatever story we need. We can fabricate papers to match it.”

“ _I_ ,” enunciates Alfred, “can fabricate papers. I can do this very specific and very illegal service for you, Master Wayne, but we are not making decisions tonight. Just plans. Plans that, again, involve taking responsibility for _raising a child from another planet._ ”

“There’s no one else we can trust with this.”

“I do have government connections, Master Wayne.” Alfred voices the option even while knowing the answer. “I could use them.”

“Absolutely not. We have no guarantees.”

“Very well, but consider the timing for you personally: You’re one month from beginning a eight-year training regime, a commitment of your own devising.” Alfred has set aside the first aid kit entirely now. He sits forward in his chair dress shirt rolled to his elbows. There’s blood on the floor and a dying child in the room. There are few niceties left. Few proper things. “To begin is full commitment. Some of the men and women you seek to train you may _kill_ you if you fail them. I know at least one of them absolutely will. Where does a child factor into that path?”

Master Wayne’s eyes aren’t quite as blue as his mother’s, more a dull gray, like a sky clouded over. When he looks at Alfred, it’s so very rare for him to wear any particular emotion plainly, but in this particular moment what comes through primarily is a kind of raw heat. The same heat a dying man exudes as the cut artery does its work. A feverish burn.

Alfred softens a little. “You could simply delay your departure. A few years perhaps. Finish your schooling, make other arrangements toward your goal. See how… this situation develops. Then choose a course. For now, we should make no decisions, only… gather intelligence.”

Bruce sits quietly for a moment. No words, but some of that raw ache fades in his stare. He studies the boy.

“What do you think of ‘Clark’?”

Alfred blinks. “As…? As a name?”

Bruce frowns, wheels visibly turning. “I shouldn’t think of human names yet. I need to figure out if he has one already...”

“I said no decisions.”

Bruce looks up finally, toward the window and starts to stand. “I need to look at that ship...”

Alfred catches Bruce’s elbow, gently. “I will handle it, Master Wayne. I believe the catacombs should house the _alien vessel_ safely. Now, remain here and resist the temptation to be _productive_. Sit for a moment.” Alfred waits until Bruce is safely seated again, ignoring the restless glance he gives the door. “Change the washcloth every half an hour if I’m gone longer than that.”

“Okay.”

“If any trouble arises, I have my phone on my person.”

“Okay.”

Alfred, suspecting that Bruce has begun to disconnect from himself, says more clearly: “I will return shortly.”

An hour and half later, Alfred hikes his way back to the master bedroom to find Bruce asleep on the bed, having lain back on the mattress, boots on the floor, hands folded on his stomach. Rather like he’d lain down to just close his eyes. The alien boy, however, must have woken at some point because he’d crawled out from under the covers to curl up next to Bruce. The red blanket is tucked around both of them and the boy’s breathing somewhat evened. His head rests on Bruce’s chest.

Alfred sighs and leans into the doorframe, watching the skies through the windows continue to burn.

“Damn.”

 

* * *

 

 

“Kal. Kal, calm down.”

“I can’t get down! I can’t get down!”

“Calm. Down.”

“I can’t!”

“Focus on my voice. Look at me. You’re okay. You’re just on the ceiling. You’re not going anywhere. You’re –”

The ceiling at Kal’s back splinters, the drywall cracking as though a tremendous pressure is shoving the boy’s skinny body through the roof of Bruce’s Tokyo safehouse. Kal freezes, stops breathing. A low groan rises from somewhere overhead, within the walls, like a steel girder buckling. The ceiling cracks again, splits spider-webbing from where his lower back, hands, and feet are braced. Kal isn’t even moving. Just sitting there while some unfathomable force exerts itself on the boy’s body from no visible source. Kal, who is five years old and not emotionally equipped for such weirdness, immediately starts babble-crying hysterically.

“Fuck,” Bruce whispers.

“I’m gonna fall into the sky!”

“No, you’re not. You need to calm down.”

Kal cries louder.  

“Kal. Look at me. _Look_ at me.” Bruce waits until he’s looking and stands beneath him, arms open. “Focus on me. Just come down. Remember what I said about throwing a baseball? You look at your target and step into it. Just look at me and –“

Kal falls fifteen feet off the ceiling.

Bruce’s heart stops but the rest of his body dives and Kal drops directly into his arms, flailing. His elbow pinwheels, striking Bruce in the chin, a glancing blow. The bones in his jaw immediately crack together, a white-hot pain bursting from the point of impact through his skull. He falls over, still bear-hugging Kal, but with stars blooming and waning in his eyes. He breathes through the pain and assesses that his jaw is not broken. One tooth is definitely chipped though. He remains lying on his back, bear-hugging Kal to his chest. 

“Kal,” he grunts. “You need to calm down.”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

“Calm.”

Kal sniffs and breathes and eventually stops shaking. Bruce waits until then and sits up, gently unfolding Kal from his arms. He knows his eyes are running, reactive tears from the blow. He wipes them away with a casual mien and sits cross-legged, Kal’s shoulders in his hands so he can look the kid over. Kal's lower lip trembles, breath jittery because he’s trying not to cry. His bangs hang directly into his eyes.

“Are you hurt?”

“N-no. No, but I hit you! I –”

“It’s fine. Did you have the nightmare again?” Kal looks away, then nods. Bruce taps his chin so he looks at him. “That’s okay. That means we have a ‘why’. Right? So I have a solve for that.”

“Yeah?”

“Sure. When I was your age, I had nightmares.”

“About what?”

Bruce blinks, once, face neutral. “Lots of things. Alfred helped train me to dream lucidly. So when I have a nightmare, I know it’s not real and I make it go away.” He tries a smile, just half of one. “Does that sound good?”

Kal sniffs. “Can I have some hot cocoa?”

Bruce sighs. “Sure.” He pulls Kal to his feet, bouncing slightly. “Let’s go.”

Kal grabs his hand while they walk down the hall toward the kitchen. “I’m sorry about the ceiling.”

Bruce squeezes his hand back. “It’s just a safe house. I’ll fix it later.”

“Why aren’t you freaking out?”

“Who says I’m not? You broke my ceiling, kid.”

Kal scrubs his hand across his face. “Why didn’t the pod tell me how to fly? How come it didn’t have instructions?”

“I don’t think Kryptonians can fly on their homeworld.” Bruce flicks on the kitchen lights and goes about fetching milk, cocoa, and the tea kettle. “The info log your parents sent with you seems like it was made very quickly. They had foresight though. They managed to get that message recorded and equip the ship with some basic educational functions for you.” A pause while Bruce sets the kettle on the stove. “How is the Kryptonian coming by the way?”

Kal makes a weird tri-tonal hum noise that somehow forms syllables then keeps talking that way. Bruce, over the last two years, has determined Kryptonian words and sentence structure itself sounds vaguely Chinese if the Chinese regularly made three different tones in their throat. In pure tonality it reminds him of throat singing. Conversational vibrato and chord. In the limited time he’s had to study Kal’s ship and, through it, the culture of his homeworld, Bruce has found layering and harmony at the core of both writing, language, and architecture. The culture of meshed ideas and aesthetic.

Kal interrupts himself by coughing and bouncing on his stool. “Can I also have chocolate syrup in mine?”

Bruce digs mini marshmallows out of the pantry. “Sure. If you can tell me what you just said, but in Japanese.”

“ _The girl jumped over the moon and fell through the galaxy. When she fell, she saw Rao and became the great red sun that warmed the world.”_ Then, in English: “It’s a fantasy legend.”

“A fairy tale?”

Kal considers this. “Yeah, that sounds right. I don’t get what Rao is though.”

“I think it’s a deity, but some of the translations suggest less a god, more a force.”

Kal – who, again, is five years old – nods like that makes sense. “Do gods die if its planet dies?”

“I’m not sure. I don’t know how gods work. I’m not even sure if gods are real. That is something no one knows.” The water is beginning to boil. Bruce lets it go, however, because unless it’s absolutely scalding hot, Kal won’t drink it. Bruce folds his arms, thinking. “But if there are legends of flying, then maybe Kryptonians did fly once. Maybe under a younger sun or on another planet.”

“Huh?”

“Earth orbits a yellow sun.” Bruce gestures with one hand. “From the images in the pod and a few of the videos, I think Krypton orbited a red giant. Young stars have a different kind of radiation compared to old stars like that. I’ve suspected for a sometime that your strength and abilities are linked to the radiation from a yellow star.” The kettle is screaming so he pulled it off the stove and pours the hot water into a mug, reaching for the cocoa. “This might be why you enjoy sleeping in the sun so much, though, I suspect _that_ is just laziness.”

“M’not lazy.” Kal pouts, literally, his lower lip sticking out.

“No, you just enjoy your downtime. Drink your cocoa.”

Kal gulps the boiling drink without flinching. He palms the mug, which is still huge in his tiny hands, “Bruce?”

“Yes?”

“If I can't control my powers... then I can't be around human people can I?” He doesn't say 'normal' people. Bruce coached him away from that. He gazes into his mug and says, quietly, "Cuz it's not safe."

 “I think you can learn control.”

“From you?”

Bruce says nothing a moment. Then, “No, actually, I think you would need to learn from someone else. Someone so experienced that your strength wouldn’t phase them. They could still teach you. I think it’s best you learn from a master.”

Kal lights up. “A teacher? Did you find someone? Is it the person you’re training with now? The secret one?”

“ _No_ ,” says Bruce, tone utterly two-dimensional. “You will not be training in Japan.”

Mostly because Tsunetomo has ties to the Yakuza and in no shape or form will he ever be allowed to know of Kal’s existence, much less his developing abilities to break the law of physics and human limitation. Tsunetomo is why Bruce has rented out a bunker on the far side of Tokyo and why Alfred has gone back to his MI-6 methodology around security and patrol. He’s perimeter checking presently. When he’s not doing that, he makes sure Kal is getting through his studies and not floating around the bunker. The flying thing is new. Alfred, who didn’t agree with moving to Japan in the first place, has made it clear the flying thing has only made life more difficult and he blames Bruce for it mostly.

 “How do you feel about China?” Bruce says this the way most parents might say ‘Disneyland’. And Kal, because he is being raised poorly (maybe) lights up exactly like he said ‘Disneyland’. “This time next year I should be done with my training here and I think you’ll be old enough to meet with a teacher.”

“But… the flying?”

“I have confidence we’ll figure that out before then.”

Kal looks doubtful, hope and fear in equal measure behind his eyes and in his tone. “How do you know?”

And Bruce thinks: _I don’t. I don’t know anything when it comes you. You’re an unknown constantly evolving variable. You’re five and you can speak an alien language and semi-fluent Japanese, but you struggle with basic math concepts. You can hear things you shouldn’t be able to. You’re as strong as an adult man and only getting stronger. I have no idea what you will become, what our sun may turn you into. Your skin could split and birth a monster form. Your lifespan might only be in handfuls of years. You love chocolate and hate peppermint and refuse to eat your vegetables and I don’t even know if that matters. Maybe your ideal diet is, actually, a bag of sugar every day. You’re fucking five years old and I am terrified every goddamn day for you. It hurts imaging your future._

But what Bruce says is: “Because I’m your older brother and I know best. Drink your cocoa.”

 

_tbc_


	2. Chapter 2

“He struggles with the forms.”

“He is young.”

“He struggles not for lack of physical instinct, but for lack of will. He has no grounding, no roots. Tethered to nothing, he finds no center from which to draw. It is not, I suspect, in his nature.”

“No kidding,” says Bruce, somewhat under his breath, in English.

Chu Chin Li eyes him sidelong. Only after Bruce looks respectably apologetic does he go on. “It is possible he’s simply too young for the aggressive forms. Given time, he could develop the aptitude for it.” Li’s slow methodical Mandarin has a way of slowing time. Not unpleasantly, but slowing it nonetheless. He inclines his head slightly, assenting to something. “He will do better with Wushu.”

“He seems to like it.”

“He prefers a... defensive posture.”

“Kal doesn’t have much natural violence in him.”

“You do.”

Bruce glances at his master.

Li’s eyes, dark and creased by age, give him nothing to go on. It is an eerie kind of stillness within the old Shaolin master and from that absolute calm, Bruce can never pick up on a thing. Even with Tsunetomo’s training – a weaponized fluency in body language, tells, and the invisible tics of human energy – he sees nothing. Li’s face reminds him that no matter how long he lives, no matter how he trains, there are things in the universe that he will never grasp. Like the infinite indifference and empathy that co-exists in one man’s stare.

Bruce looks away and focuses instead on the other end of the compound where Kal, for the dozenth time, hits the hard-packed dirt on his butt. Biyu, his teacher, stands ready in Xu Bu, two hands up, one toe set delicately down. Only in the technicality of her use does she simplify her attacks and stances for Kal. She attacks him as an adult when they spar. She orders him to come to his feet.

In a slightly choppy Wuhan dialect, Kal laments, “That hurt.”

“That did not hurt.” Her Wuhan, soft as folded steel, contains a reservoir of patience. “Pretending otherwise is disrespect.” She raises one hand flat before her, cocked in invitation and says, “Again.”

Kal huffs. Then he curls his feet to his chest, rocks back, and bounces back up, landing weightlessly into drop stance. Arms thrown wide along the axis of his body. He’s nine years old, skinny in his sweats and AC/DC T-shirt. His hair’s buzzed down to a militant high and tight, not because it looks good (it doesn’t) but because it’s the only thing Bruce can manage regularly on the road. 

“You near the end of your time here.” Chu Chin Li begins to walk, circling slowly toward the far side of the compound. Overhead, the wind groans through canopy and somewhere behind them, Biyu flips Kal into the pond. “Where will your travels take you next?”

“Nepal.” Bruce follows him. “Another teacher has agreed to see us there. There’s a friend in Paris I need to check in with. Bhutan after that.”

Li considers him a moment, then: “Kal will like Nepal.”

Bruce shakes his head. “He likes everything.”

“A rare quality. Fortunate.”

“Maybe.” 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Kal-El knows a couple Kryptonian songs.  

The one lullaby mostly, but a few others. On the road, with no one to hear, Bruce doesn’t hush him because for all that Krypton is dead – ruptured and radioactive, it’s fragmentary pieces hurdling into the void – Kal still has the language and, in some way, that keeps the people on that holo-vid alive. And there is a kind of grounding in listening to the low harmonics of Kryptonian in the night. Because it’s usually at night, with the stars spun out into the dark net of sky, that Kal talks to himself in the dialect of his dead world.  

Luckily, the dead don’t interest him so much as the living.

“Let’s go, Kal.”

“Hold on.”

Kal has pressed himself behind a stone pillar, hair licked up from his head in a wave, his Jansport pack hanging off one shoulder. From this vantage, he peers through the entryway. Inside, a stout Nepalese woman instructs a class of twenty children in the Tibetan alphabet. Bruce waits in the street, moss grown up beneath his boot, for Kal to decide if this slice of humanity is something he  _needs_  to see. If it is, they’ll stay a while. Behind them, the small mountain village begins to come alive, the smell of cooking food and livestock wafting slowly from the river bank market.

Inside, the students recite their letters and Kal listens, quietly mouthing along.

Bruce keeps an eye on a man in a faded red windbreaker who has been following them for the past half mile. Work boots, cap, and mountaineers pack, pitons clipped to the side of his bag, but no other visible climbing equipment. They are near enough to Everest this could make sense… but Bruce keeps an eye out anyway. He’s a Wayne after all; there’s too much Gotham in him to assume the city would not somehow follow him to the other side of the world.

When Bruce turns around, Kal has been invited to join the class. The teacher gestures with one hand indicating an empty space at the edge of the class. In neat, but halting English she says, “Yes. Yes, come.” Then in Tibetan, “Come in and sit. Don’t stare.” Kal glances at Bruce then, receiving his nod, darts forward to take a seat at the edge of the group, cross-legged and beaming. 

Later, on the road, Bruce asks him what he learned.

“Dunno. But I like it here.”

“Why?”

Kal shrugs. “I dunno. It’s nice.”

“We’re strangers here, Kal. You need to be respectful of that.”

“I know. She was really nice to let me sit in. She didn’t have to do that.”

“No she did not. That was kind of her.”

“You didn’t have to take me in either.”

Bruce looks at Kal sharply, but there’s no drama in the statement. He’s chewing a mouthful of trail mix, one cheek packed with raisins. He grins with some difficultly and Bruce resists the urge to glare at him, because that just encourages Kal to new heights. He ignores the statement for a while, letting it meander and settle. Kal munches loudly beside him, their boots crunching across the gravel and dirt packed road.

Eventually he says, “I always wanted a little brother.”

“Really?”

Bruce nods. “Yup. So it just made sense at the time. Needed company on these trips.”

“Alfred doesn’t like it.”

“Alfred doesn’t like most of my decisions.”

“You  _do_  do weird stuff.”

“I guess.”

“Most millionaires and rich people don’t hike around in other countries and not shower for weeks.”

“Are you telling me I smell bad? Is that what you’re getting at?”

Kal nods frantically.

Bruce, unamused, steals his trail mix. “Well now you’ve done it. You’re not allowed to talk unless it’s in Punjabi.”

Kal groans, drama included this time and Bruce grins.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

His little brother steps off a cliff and falls five hundred feet into nothing.

Bruce, standing with on boot braced against the switch-backed edge of the cliff and looking down, holds his breath and counts. One one-thousand, two one-thousand, three one-thousand, four one-thousand, fuck one-thousand, six one-thousand.  The mists seem to muffle everything, swallowing sound and light and warmth. Bruce waits at the top of the mountain path, staring down into the gray void, and confronts the bloom of nausea as it rises in his gut, a snaking trellis of dread that constricts around the mechanics of his lungs. Seven one-thousand, eight one-thousand, nine one-thousand –

“Kal.” He maintains a calm, irritated mien, and speaks clearly into the empty air. “If you don’t come back, I’m coming after you.”

Which is when Kal drops from somewhere overhead and lands, monkey-clinging to Bruce’s back. “Gotcha!” He’s laughing so hard, maybe he never noticed how his brother’s pulse had ticked steadily up, adrenaline rising toxic in his blood, panic like a poison. Kal grins and plants his chin on to top of Bruce’s head. “I knew I could do it! Did you see? It’s different when it’s not in the house! It feels different. Did you see?”

“No, because it’s foggy. That’s the point.”

“I could totally do it again. Want me to do it again?”

_No. Never. Come down and never go back up again ever._

But what he says is, “Sure. When else will you get a chance to practice like this?”

Bruce swings Kal down to the ground and watches him run, leaping down the path, his road-worn boots hitting the ground in a three-step hop and then he’s gone again – launching from the mountainside and rocketing soundlessly up into the blind soup of the cloud bank. If he listens, Bruce can hear the air displacing, Kal’s windbreaker flapping as he speeds up. For almost an hour before the sun breaks through the mist, Kal-El hurdles himself into the skies around the Himalayas and Bruce Wayne waits. By the time Kal comes crashing back down, laughing and soaked with high-speed condensation, to tackle him, Bruce has figured out how to appear nonchalant about it.

“Oh my god!” Kal keeps yelling. “Oh my god!”

Bruce, wrangling the flailing Kryptonian back to earth, says, “Took the words right out of my mouth.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The rains come quickly, boiling the earth beneath their boots, churning up the thick red until it froths and runs liquid down the mountain roads. Bruce catches Kal float-stepping the mud after the first few miles of slog and doesn’t bother to reprimand him for it. When you’re hot, sweaty, soggy, and gross while fighting your way through the monsoon, finding the additional energy to snipe at floating space children gets difficult. Especially when said space children do not, apparently, sweat and become uncomfortable with drastic temperature changes the same way you do.

“Hey, bro. I think –.”

“Punjabi,” grunts Bruce, hiking his pack up higher on his shoulder.

Kal switches to a clunky pidgin approximate of Punjabi that would make a native speaker angry, but Kal’s had just a month to start learning whereas Bruce has been planning this trip for a decade. Kal says, “Something wrong-weird?” He gestures at his head beneath the hood of his water-wicking jacket. He struggles with it momentarily, the words not coming. “My top? Head?” Then, under his breath in English, “Stupid…”

“Hair,” Bruce says in English. Then says it in Punjabi.

“My hair is weird.”

“I told you, it will grow out and that wouldn’t have happened if you’d held still.”

“No. Other –” He gets frustrated and swaps to English. “My hair won’t cut.”

Bruce looks over his shoulder. “What do you mean?”

“It won’t cut. I tried with scissors. It won’t cut.” After an embarrassed quiet, the roar of the rain drowning his words, he says, “You did a really bad job. I was trying to fix it.”

Bruce stops walking and turns around abruptly enough to catch Kal skating a full half and inch off the ground in the exact manner he’d been instructed not to do. His boots make an audible ‘splorp’ noise as he hits the mud, sinking guiltily back into the sludge. Bruce says nothing, just stares down at him, expressionless until Kal visibly shrinks away from the sheer force of displeasure.

After a moment, Bruce says, “Don’t.  _Do_  that.”

“Okay.”

“Are you worried about this?”

“No it’s just weird.”

“You’re an alien.”

“I know I’m just  _saying_ …” Bruce shuts him up by reaching out and yanking Kal’s hood down over his face. “Hey!”

“We have ten more miles to go.” He starts back up the mountain, using one hand to find purchase on the side of a rock face. “Focus on that and stay on the ground.”

“I’m just saying,” Kal tries again, huffing, “that your razor might not work on it anymore.” Then, after a moment. “You know it doesn’t work on my skin anymore right?”

The structure of that sentence from a ten-year-old boy disturbs Bruce. He stops climbing and turns. When Kal does not elaborate he says, “You’ve been testing that?”

Kal shrugs. The hood hangs over his eyes now so Bruce leans down, the incline of the hill putting him just eye-level with Kal. Blue eyes peer worriedly back at him from under the hood, damp curls coiling inky against the kid’s forehead. The rains thunder and pour off the top of Kal’s hood in rivers so steady it’s hard to pick out the little details through the deluge. Bruce eventually reaches out, using one hand to shield against the water so he can look his brother in the face.

“Kal-El.”

“It works if I press hard enough, but I have to press really hard now.” He blinks hard. His voice gets thick. “Don’t be mad.”

“I’m not mad. We’ve talked about this before. It’s very likely you’ll get stronger as you get older. If you want to test it, tell me.” And for a moment it’s just two of them standing on a mountain in Nepal staring at each other while Kal fails to articulate the existential terror of his exponential growth. He just stares, wordless in half a dozen languages about the limits expanding unstoppably and invisibly within him. Bruce sighs. “Hey.” He loops one hand around the nape of Kal’s neck, squeezing slightly. “Don’t worry about that. You’re fine.”

“But what if I never stop getting stronger?”

“I don’t think that will happen.”

“But what if it doesn’t stop?” Kal’s voice gives him away: how long it’s been eating at him. “What if I just keep changing and changing forever?”

“I don’t think that will happen, but even if it did, I’ve got a solve for it. That’s why we’re here.”

Kal looks hopeful. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. The man we’re going to meet? His name is Shihan Matsusa. He accepts no disciples and has not allowed anyone to train under him for nearly a decade but he agreed to teach us.” Bruce pauses, then crouches down, squatting so he can fit his other hand to the side of Kal’s jaw and focus his attention. His ignores the de-ja-vu, his hand framing his brother’s skull and how the diameter of his hand no longer scales large enough to shield his whole head. “He specializes in mental discipline. Threshold training and control. That’s going to be everything you need to keep your power in check, Kal. But even if Matsusa did not agree to see us, I don’t see you losing control.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I’m smarter than you and I think about this stuff. Trust me.”

Kal thinks about it. “Okay.”

“That’s the spirit.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

A man in Beijing tries to kill him.  

To the man’s credit: he gets as far as puling the gun out before Bruce rabbit-punches a kink in his windpipe, breaks his wrist, and slams the grip of the weapon back into the assassin’s forehead. He ends the fight by grabbing the man’s face and driving his skull into the brick behind him, a dull ‘thunk’, then drop. Bruce does it by instinct, does it so quickly, so quietly, his would-be killer lies slumped against the alley wall while Bruce slows his breathing. He waits, head cocked, half expecting Kal to come rushing around the corner; it’s touch and go lately how much his growing audio sensitivity can be controlled.

Some days, when he’s paying attention, Kal can pick up a conversation two blocks away in a crowd. Other days he lies paralyzed and panting while the unstoppable sonic roar of every noise in a half mile radius crushes in on him.

But back to the matter at hand: Bruce releases the magazine from the stock of the gun, palms it and tosses it, empties the round from the chamber and tucks the gun itself into his belt at the small of his back. Then he rifles through the assassin’s clothes, finds a flip phone (pre-paid burner), a wallet (cash only, no ID), and a KA-BAR knife in a holster inside his jacket. The Glock’s got its numbers filed off. The wallet’s got about three thousand in cash. A quick check reveals no obviously identifying tattoos and from the man’s ethnicity he’d guess a local hire then, not a shipped pro.

Bruce thinks about this paid murderer being less strategic.

He imagines this man lying in wait somehow, meeting Kal alone in their hotel room or on his way back from the corner store and in this imagining Kal’s reflexes, his strength, his speed, his training means nothing in the moment where he doesn’t understand what’s happening right up until the assassin puts the bullet in his belly.

Because a bullet is not a razorblade leant idly on a fingertip.

A bullet ends worlds.

Bruce thinks about killing this man. The urge flash-pointing through his nerves like hunger or arousal. He lets it live in his fingertips for a moment, the potential energy in his palms to reach forward, place one hand on the assassin’s chin and the other behind his head. Then it would just be a twist, popping the topmost cervical vertebra off from the rest of the spine. Done. A dead killer lying in an alley until the smell gives him away. Bruce pictures himself doing this. He pictures himself walking back upstairs and sleeping in the same room with Kal-El. He pictures himself living with Kal having killed this man.

So, he stands up and walks back to the main thoroughfare.

He dials back the last number on the phone after a few rings, hears someone picks up on the other end. When no one speaks he says in slightly growly Mandarin, “It’s done.” He waits. Listens to the line click dead, then snaps the phone in half and tosses it and the gun into a commercial dumpster behind a MacDonald’s. He goes back to the hotel, takes the elevator up to the penthouse, and finds Kal sleeping soundly in the twin bed nearest the door. He’s got both arms wrapped around a pillow, hair kinked up and untamable now that they can’t cut it or get brush through it most days. The radio plays the local news in a low murmur on the nightstand.

Bruce reaches out to shake him awake. He stops a half inch short, however, palm hovering undecided for a moment over his shoulder. Kal’s backpack lies open, its contents spread on the floor in a way that describes the afternoon – Kal taking out each item and laying on the floor, sitting there and going through each memory. Looking at the mess Bruce can see it as a timeline of objects.

Here are the things in Kal’s backpack: A chipped tea cup, a charm from a Tokyo street dispenser, a rope of mala beads, stones (likely from Everest though Kal and sworn he hadn’t flown there), comic books in Russian, Punjabi, and French, a pocket knife. There’s a feather knotted into a wristband, a silk calligraphy painting the size of his palm, the T-shirt he wore to the Holi Festival in Nepal, three curry recipes, packets of rice candy, and a disposable camera with stickers on it.

Kal sighs in his sleep.

Bruce waits another five minutes before finally touching Kal’s shoulder and shaking him. “Hey, pack your stuff. We’re going.”

Kal rolls groggily, one eye cracking open. “Now?”

“Yes, now. Let’s move.”

“Kay.” Kal yawns, accepting this turn of events without a fuss. “Where we going?”

“Home.”

“Gotham?”

Bruce nods, acknowledging that Kal has lived longer abroad than in America, much less Gotham City. “Yes. Gotham.”

He smiles, drowsy still. “Gotham’s nice in the summer right?”

“Yeah, kid.” Bruce weighs the lie before saying it, “Gotham’s great in the summer.”

 

_tbc_


	3. Chapter 3

“Sir, this seems alarmingly desperate of you.”

Bruce looks up from where he’s staring pensively at Kal-El’s or rather _Clark Calvin Wayne’s_ Facebook page. It’s a happy reel of mostly him taking pictures of other people and not getting tagged in anything because Clark avoids having his picture taken whenever possible. And whenever his picture is taken, somehow it always comes out blurry. On his timeline – a trio of girls puckering up for the camera, a green-eyed linebacker grinning from inside the muddy cage of his helmet, the Gotham city skyline, many, many pictures of large-portion food servings. Giant soup bowl steaming with noodles and sundaes the size of Kal’s head. His profile picture is a cat with its nose in the camera.

"His classmates are flirting with him, Alfred. He wants my advice."

"Advise him to flirt back?"

"That seems problematic."

"Teen romance is that, sir."

“No, I mean because he’s an alien vigilante-wannabe who can throw pick-up trucks and I have literally no idea how, specifically, I should be advising him.” Bruce scrolls resentfully down Kal’s feed.  “On the one hand romantic attachments are normal and he should absolutely foster those relationships. In fact, if he’s in a relationship, I can probably discourage him from trying to join me on the street. But, alternatively, anyone who gets close to him might notice he’s invulnerable.”

“It _is_ possible for Master Kal to have casual romances where he doesn’t get hit by a bus in front of his chosen paramour.” Alfred has attained perfect tonal flatness. “He knows to look both ways at this point, sir.”

“Still though.”

“Right, so you’re on Kal-El’s Facebook because…?”

“The girl, Mariko Short.” Bruce clicks Kal’s home page back pen and points half-way down the page at a smiling Japanese girl in French braids and shorts. “And a senior classmen, Bobby Hale.” He scrolls and points to tall, extremely dark skinned boy with dreadlocks and a huge grin. “I’ve run a background check and –”

“You did what?”

“— they’re both clean. No ties to rival corporations, crime families or otherwise.”

Alfred looks exasperated. “That seems rather drastic, Master Bruce.”

“I’m passingly worried I need to go over safe sex again.”

“Usually, I would applaud the notion, but given that you more or less terrified the boy with visions of impregnating a girl and the resulting fetus might kick its way out of her spine, I would advise that you be less... graphically discouraging?”

“I didn’t say he shouldn’t have sex. We know nothing in Kal’s biology is toxic to humans. I just said that he should be careful about penetrative sex with any partner that has a uterus.”

“He almost _cried_ , Master Bruce.”

“Then I did my job. I’m actually more worried about a cultural disconnect. I don’t know if sex was a thing for Kryptonians like it is for humans.”

“I don’t know, sir. His _existence_ would suggest so, but perhaps ask him?”

“I did. He says he’s not sure. He didn’t strictly go through a traditional puberty.”

“Yes, the laser eyes were a surprise.”

Bruce clicks around on the page, opening a few albums. “That was a dramatic week.” He glances at Alfred. “It’s hard to tell if the laser eyes just gives him more to think about than sex or if he just doesn’t think of sex.”

“That’s not necessarily a Kryptonian affliction.”

 “Alfred,” says Bruce, leaning back in his chair and steepling his fingers, resting the tips of his forefingers gently against his mouth. “What do we really _know_ about Kryptonians?”

“Not nearly as much as would have been useful during the laser-eyes phase of his development.” Alfred, apparently, intends not to let that one go. “You’d think his parents might have sent along a note about that.”

“Unlikely.” Bruce studies the ceiling, only half attentive at this point. “The laser vision is photonucleic. Like his flight and x-ray vision, no Kryptonian ever had those abilities until exposed to a yellow sun so it’s not something they would have known to warn us about.” He drops his hands into his lap. “Also, like most of the information Jor and Lara failed to send along, it was probably because they were minutes from planetary obliteration.”

Alfred winces visibly, but Bruce misses it.  

“Most of his powers aren’t even powers. Krypton was just bigger, more gravity. Kal’s entire molecular structure is just denser because that’s what he needed to survive just being born on his planet. Remember when we ran a red-radiation test? Forty-eight hours, no exposure to yellow sunlight, just red radiation. He lost the flight, the x-ray vision, long-distance visual acuity, the extreme strength, and I suspect – though we never tested too far – most of his physical invulnerability.”

A huff.

“He could still jump five stories up from a standing position. He could still punch a hole in steel plate. The only difference was it hurt a little when he did, he lost the first layer of skin on his knuckles. That was the first time I saw him bleed since he was seven. Even if he loses the sun, he’s still Kryptonian.”

A beat.

“I put a basketball hoop on the ceiling,” he says. “I made a game out of it.”

“As you should have? Considering it was a test that presents Kal with the reality of his physical weaknesses?”

“Honestly, it’s just a miracle some chemical composition in the air didn’t melt the mucus membrane in this lungs and kill him the moment I opened the pod thirteen years ago. The odds of any species native to a red sun solar system suddenly finding themselves near a small G-type star and surviving long enough to be changed… it’s an extremely specific astronomical phenomenon. Kal, statistically, should never have survived.”

“But he did survive. He’s survived the last thirteen years.”

“Because evolutionary roulette gave him the exact physical composition to survive and flourish on earth. That’s it.”

“And you had nothing to do with, I suppose? Despite raising him? Taking him in? Doing everything physically possible to care for him?”

“Kal can deadlift two tons of weight. I don’t have a weapon in my entire ballistics armory that can pierce his skin. He decided to just stop eating once for a month and nothing happened; his body literally switched over to solar power. He’s flesh and blood photo synthetic. His cells store solar energy and process it one thousand times more efficiently than any digestive process. He can hold his breath for five hours and see five miles in any direction – through any material except, of all things, lead – and with extreme pin point detail. He can pick out a phone conversation two miles away from him.”

Bruce stands up, still looking at the computer in front of him, the happy wall of Kal-El’s life on earth, friends sharing links to good ramen joints, pictures of cute cat videos, Farmville requests – the boring gleeful minutia of a fifteen-year-old’s highlight reel.

“It’s been nearly five years,” he goes on, “since I could cut his hair without an industrial laser. He flies by unconsciously manipulating gravitational fields in and around his body. I’ve posited it’s a mild form of telekinesis because the way his brain lights up when he starts flying is unlike anything in regular human history. He can hit MACH 3 easily. He only needs one hour of sleep every 36 hours. His ability to process, learn and speak languages is uncanny, but he gets an A minus in algebra. I’ve seen him dodge a bullet, but I can still get the drop on him if he’s not paying attention. There’s never been anyone like Kal-El on Krypton or Earth or, possibly, anywhere in the universe.”

“I don’t see what that has to do with Kal’s classmates making romantic overtures.”

“How,” says Bruce, “do you advise a unique person in the universe on anything?”

Alfred sighs loudly, annoyed. “I rather imagine you don’t fixate on what makes them unique. Much like you’ve been doing for Master Kal since he was a child. Since he was too small to speak and we had no idea what the bloody well feed him or how to comfort him. You simply guess to your best ability and make do. You’ll find that all parents that have ever lived go through precisely the same thing, simply will fewer laser eyes and dramatic ceiling destruction.”

A smirk finally, some tension unwinding from Bruce’s shoulders. “Nothing fazes you, huh?”

“Sir, I work for a man who dresses like a bat to fight crime who’s adopted an alien super being powered by sunlight. Very, very little fazes me.”

 

* * *

 

 

Bruce is having trouble breathing. Not for any physical reason like his ribs being broken (like last week) or his throat being gummed by toxic fumes (like last month) or his right lung collapsing (like three months ago), but rather because he’s watching an internal security cam feed from last night and trying to process what he’s seeing. In the footage, sixteen-year-old Kal-El turns on the florescent running lights in the ballistics wing of the catacombs. (“The Bat Cave!” Kal had deemed back when he was thirteen and running amok.)

Bruce watches Kal unlock the gun-rack from the far wall, pulling the storage sliders from the wall and taking down a smaller caliber handgun, a Glock 22. He checks the weapon for assemblage, then takes a magazine from the ammo drawer below the weapon rack and walks back to the shooting range. There, he loads the weapon and settles it into the firing cradle, then boots up the computer to set the auto-fire solution.

Bruce stops the footage. Stares for a moment at the image – Kal adjusting the aim of the Glock on the screen, tongue poking from the corner of his mouth as though he were putting together a planetary diagram for school. Bruce breathes in, then out. Starts the footage again and watches his legal ward and little brother key the firing command. He must give himself plenty of time because he jogs across the floor to stand directly in the center of the target block at the end of the lane, about ten meters out from the gun. His eyes are squeezed shut, hands clenched at his sides.

The gun goes off.

Bruce breathes again only when Kal, on the screen, peers down at his chest.

There’s no audio, but Kal definitely starts whooping. He bounces into the air and does a floating mid-air kick-bounce number then darts around the lab. He cleans the Glock, stows the magazine, reracks the gun and grabs a higher caliber weapon. He repeats this process with a Desert Eagle .45 Long Colt, Smith & Wesson .500, the Smith & Wesson XVR 460 Magnum, then the Marlin BFR before changing up to the tommy gun. By the time he gets into the assault rifles, his T-shirt hangs in shreds. He stops only setting up the AK-47 to full auto… then hesitating, sensing that, perhaps, he’s gone a step too far.

He re-racks the AK, scrubs the lab down for GSR, then shuts down the lights.

The footage stops.

“I thought,” says Alfred slowly from about five feet behind him, “that you should see this immediately. Before young Master Kal returns from school.”

“Thank you, Alfred. I’ll deal with it.”

Bruce waits until Alfred has gone before grabbing the nearest item – a rack of test tubes – from the workbench beside him and hurling to the far wall just to watch it explode into glass and splinters. He does not yell. He does not _scream_ like the pressure climbing into his throat would suggest he should. He just looks at the ruined tubes and glass and breathes slowly, evenly, deeply then lets himself imagine the world where he came home to Kal-El lying dead in the ballistics lane, his rib-cage blown apart, cloudy-eyed and gone. He lets that world inhabit and crush him.

Then he waits for Kal to come home.

He senses it the moment he comes through the door, of course, the tension when Bruce calls him into the living room and asks him to sit down. He obeys with a kind of wide-eyed fear, taking his seat slowly on the couch, setting his backpack down on the floor by his feet and waiting for the hammer to fall.

Bruce makes sure not to raise his voice when asks, calmly, “Are you out of your mind?” When Kal doesn’t answer, just sits on the edge of the couch staring at the floor, Bruce says, “You used my ballistics range to shoot yourself. You used it not just to shoot yourself, but _body shots_ to the upper torso while unsupervised. If at any point the higher caliber weapons had knocked you off your feet or misfired you could have been shot in the head. You’ve never been shot in the head, Kal. We have no idea if that kills you or hurts you. If you start bleeding internally I can’t actually cut you open to do surgery. We wouldn’t be able to help you. If you’re hurt, I can’t stitch you up. Did you even think about any of this?”

Kal just keeps staring at the floor.

“Look at me, Kal-El.”

He squeezes his eyes shut. “I knew it wouldn’t –”

“No, you didn’t.”

“I did! I knew. I can feel it. We’ve been doing all those impact tests and they didn’t do anything.”

“You shot yourself,” repeats Bruce, “with _my_ ballistics equipment. You used my ballistics equipment to aim a _gun_ on yourself and fire it.”

“But it’s okay!” He meets Bruce’s stare, a kind of desperation in his voice now. “I’m okay. Nothing happened. I’m bulletproof I –!”

“What if I came home and you were dead?”

Kal’s voice tightens as he speaks. “Nothing happened. I’m fine.”

“What if I came home and you were dead because I trained you how to use my lab? I trusted you to be an adult, to be smart, and never in my worst nightmares did I think you would use my training to test the limits of what can and cannot _kill_ you without even speaking to me about it.” Bruce hasn’t raised his voice once and he does not do so now. “How could you do that?”

“I didn’t! I knew it wouldn’t hurt me!”

“No, you didn’t. You didn’t _know_. You had a hunch. Instead of testing that hypothesis in a supervised environment you did it behind my back and without my permission _with half a dozen high caliber firearms_ because you, what, you want to come on patrol with me?” Kal starts to protest, but Bruce cuts him off. “I don’t buy for a second that you didn’t know I would find the footage. I showed you our security system. You know it inside and out. This was supposed to be you proving a point?”

“ _No_.”

“I don’t let you patrol with me because I didn’t want to watch you get shot, Kal. Because I’m dealing with mobsters and murderers who would execute a teenaged boy immediately if they got a chance. So I told you no.”

“I’m sorry.” Kal’s getting desperate now, afraid. “I didn’t –”

“I had to watch you get shot fifty-seven times on that feed.”

Kal starts crying at this point. He doesn’t say anything, just sits there with his head bowed, eyes shut, fighting down the small jerks that twitch through his whole body and end at his shoulders. His hands are fisted into the cushions on either side of him, a deceptive gesture – the force he is likely exerting against his own palms could crush diamond. Kal-El’s breath draws shaky. His face doesn’t get red when he cries, his eyes don’t puff up, his nose doesn’t run. He tends to hyperventilate though. Excess of emotion makes humans snotty. It makes Kryptonians breathless.

Bruce says nothing. He watches himself almost at a distance staring expressionlessly down at the top of his brother’s head and not feeling anything, just looking at him. Kal’s right sneaker has paint on it. (School project.) There is a phone number on the back of his hand. (Not his hand writing.) His clothes smell like the bottom of a gym locker and faintly like deodorant and someone’s body spray. (A classmate’s, Bobby Hale, most likely. He has the locker next to Kal in PE.)

After a minute, Bruce moves to sit down next to Kal.

He waits for the boy’s breathing to even out.

“I’m not… okay, no, I _am_ mad. I’m furious with you. That was the stupidest thing you have ever done.”

 “ _You do stuff like that every night though_!” Kal wipes his face on the back of his sleeve, balling it up in his fist. “You go out there every night and fight mobsters and murderers! You can’t tell me I scare you! You scare _me_! This is bullshit!”

“Kal, I’ve been trained to…”

“So have I! I was with you when you trained. I trained too. What was the point of all that if you won’t let me help?”

“I didn’t train you to do what I do.” Bruce resists the urge to grabs Kal by the shoulders and shake him as hard as he can. Crush him in a hug. Punch him in the mouth. Anything. _Something_. Some act that will penetrate and take root in his brother the way it’s been at the core of his own motivations for the past ten years. “I _trained_ you to control your powers so you could live a normal life. So you could be safe. I’ve treated you like an adult long before you were one because I needed you to understand the stakes.”

“What? Some mugger sees a bullet bounce off my arm? Who cares? That doesn’t –”

 “ _Don’t. Joke_.” Bruce speaks so quietly now only Kal could pick it up, but that stops Kal in his tracks immediately. Bruce narrows his eyes. “Don’t act like that doesn’t matter. It does. _You_ matter. People outing you as a bullet proof extra-terrestrial matters.” The words begin to come out gritted, a touch too urgent, too afraid. “I can’t protect you if the entire world comes for you, Kal-El. If they take you, I can’t do anything. Do you understand me?”

Kal blinks, hard, rapidly. “No one is going to take me.”

“You don’t know that.” Bruce has to restrain that urge again, to grab him and shake him. He hates himself for even feeling it, for wanting to just somehow _make_ Kal understand what is so goddamn obvious to him. “You don’t _know_ that, Kal. You don’t think. You don’t think ahead you just… do things.” He takes Kal’s shoulders in both hands. “You can’t just do things, Kal. You need to _think_. You can’t just depend on your powers to get you out of trouble. You can’t punch your way out of every situation.”

“I know that.”

“Then act like it.”

“I will, I promise. _Please_ just don’t be mad at me.”

He’s so mad. Bruce’s anger runs a vein of heat and rage all the way down to the bleeding core of him. There’s a knife in his guts that hasn’t stopped twisting since he watched that footage, watched it and then watched it go wrong in his head. The hundred thousand ways in a hundred variable realities where Bruce lives Kal’s screaming pointless death over and over and over. He’s gripping Kal’s shoulders too hard. He focuses on relaxing his grip, can’t. Can’t let go of Kal-El’s shoulders.

“You can’t do that to me, Kal. You can’t –”

Kal cuts him off by tackling him. Almost knocks him over in his hasty to hug him and his arms vise Bruce’s ribs too fast to stop. He feels hot. Kal always feels hot. Kryptonians naturally burn five degrees hotter than the average human being. Bruce can feel dampness through his shirt, soaking into his shoulder. Kal is still crying apparently and Bruce wonders what his mother would have done, his father. How they would have done better a job at this. Not fucked up like this. He is fucking this up, he knows it. He’s fucking up at protecting his family.

Bruce tucks his arms around his brother, like that will do anything, like it’s enough. “I’m not mad at you.”

“That was stupid of me.” Kal’s voice is muffled. “God, I’m an idiot.”

“You’re not. You’re just…” _Impossible. Bulletproof. Terrifying. Just a goddamn kid._ “There’s no one like you, Kal. I don’t think you can mess up at something no one has ever done before.”

“Try me,” Kal mutters. He turns his head to wipe one hand across his face. “I’ll find a way.”

Bruce huffs, squeezing a little tighter. “I just need you to be careful. Okay? You have to promise me that you’ll be careful. I can’t let you do this unless you promise to listen to me.”

“I promise. I’ll listen. I –” He jerks back.  “Do what?”

He is fucking this up.

Bruce sighs. “What I do.”


	4. Chapter 4

The bullet hits Robin in the forehead, dead center. His head snaps back and the world freezes. The world becomes a series of snapshots proceeding frame by frame – his spine arcing with the impact, one hand swinging up, independent from the rest of his body, and then he’s down, crumpled like a dead sparrow beneath warehouse lamps. Harley Quinn stares. The inert shape of a dead boy tangled in a pool of the kelvar-composite cape beneath him, one knee bent up. In the ringing silence, there’s no twitch, no gasp. Just the dead boy on the floor.

“I think… I think you  _ killed _ him.”

Joker peers doubtfully for a second, then: “Sure looks that way!”

“But… he was a kid.” Her heart’s doing something fast and anxious in her chest. She bites down on the nail of her left index finger. “S-sure, he was real annoying an’ all but did you have’ta?”

“Oh, I had to, Harls. I  _ had _ to.” Joker takes one of Harley’s hands in his, giving her his best in puppy dog eyes… before holstering the empty revolver in his belt and heaving a shrug. “Besides, it was the Bat that brought the bird-boy to a gun fight. Bound to happen. Terrible parenting honestly. If it wasn’t me doing it quick and clean it was gonna be some other maniac with, oh I dunno, a weed whacker.”

“I guess… but I’m gonna… I’m gonna check. Okay? He’s got that armor stuff. Maybe…”

“Ooooh, better not, darling. I think I blew his bird brains out.”

“I seen a lot worse.” Harley approaches slowly. “Not my first dead kid in the street.”

“Whatever makes you happy, Harls, but while you inspect the corpse, I’ll be skedaddling before the Bat kens he’s down a plucky sidekick. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Joker’s gone.

Harley swings her mallet from her shoulder, sets it on the ground and kneels down. Batman’s protégé doesn’t look too bad – his skull didn’t explode out in the back like she’d expected or cave in the front like would be reasonable. In fact, she can’t see where the bullet hit him at all. She moves carefully, bracing one hand on the pavement by his shoulder to lean over him. His cape’s got a little hood on it, deep enough that it falls down just over his eyes if he pulls it down and it’s still pulled up, low enough it covers the entire top half of his face. Usually, the stiff impact polarizing material would deflect a shot but…

“Hey. Kid.”

He doesn’t move and Harley feels a lurch, her hand hovering over his face, aborted in the motion of lifting the hood.

It’s a little strange being this close to one of the Dynamic Duo. In the year since Robin first appeared on the scene, the team-tactics seemed to be that the Boy Wonder keeps his distance until he absolutely has to get close. He’s  _ fast _ and no one sees him coming. The theory is Bats tells him to act as spotter until he can strike. And, boy, does this kid strike. His batarang throws hit like gunshots. Thinking on it, she’s not entirely sure why his street handle is Robin and not Batkid. Maybe it’s the red emblem just over his heart, like a target – a red R in a red circle. He’s otherwise outfitted in the same black and grey tactical gear the Batman uses.

She’s stalling.

“Hey, kiddo.” Harley gingerly slips her hand beneath the hem of the hood. “C’mon. It missed you right?”

She lifts it gently from his face.

He’s staring up at her, completely unharmed, domino mask lending him a neutral but mildly puzzled stare.

“You playin’ dead?”

He nods slightly.  

“Oh good, I was really worried for a second.” She leans down and pecks him on the forehead which earns her a funny look and a wrinkled nose. “He’s not in the room ya know. You can sit up if ya want.”

The kid rolls onto his side and sits up on one elbow. “You aren’t gonna tell?”

He affects a slightly younger vernacular when he’s Robin, depending on the villain. Harley knows it’s a fake voice because she’s heard him slip up a few times or get growly with scarier guys in Batman’s rogues gallery. Mostly, it’s adorable. She ruffles his hair and he flails at her slightly.  

“Nah, I won’t rat ya out. You got moxy. I like ya.”

“Why do you work with Joker then?” He finger-combs his hair. “He just tried to kill me.”

“Well, maybe if ya didn’t work with guys like Bats, guys like Mista Jay wouldn’t take shots at ya.” She wags a finger. “Seventeen aint that young to die in the streets, just sayin’.”

“I’m not seventeen.”

“Nice try, bucko, but I’m not that dumb. You do that fake little boy’s voice an’ you’re kinda short.” Harley mimes gauging someone’s height with her palm down. “But you’re a faker. It’s funny. Every thug in Gotham tells the story like you’re two-eight an’ hit like Ali. They just don’t wanna admit a teenager cleaned their clock.” When Robin just kinda sits there, looking abashed she goes on. “You know, most kids on the streets do the opposite. Try to seem older, ya know? How come you play possum?”

He thinks about it… then drops the voice entirely, pitch falling to a more natural alto. “There’s a lot of guys who wouldn’t shoot a kid. I can usually talk them down.” A shrug. Harley thinks he’s got a nice voice, as far as voices go. He’s not growly like Bats, though she suspects that's a put on too. “Besides, Batman does all the real intimidation.”

“Figured.”

“You used to work with at-risk teens, right? Before Arkham.”

“Sure did. You remind me of some of them. You know: at risk.” Harley drops back onto her butt, then settles with her legs crisscrossed. “So tell me… how come you work with the Bat?”

He squints at her through the domino mask.

“Why do you work with the Joker?”

“Cuz I’m in love with him and he makes me laugh. Your turn.”

“The Joker is a mass murderer, Harley.”

“The Batman is a vigilante criminal,  _ Robin _ . Quid pro quo.”

“Are you  _ counseling _ me, Harley Quinn?”

“Well it’s that or kill ya.”

He looks hurt or she thinks she does; the domino mask doesn’t have full facial articulation. “Would you really kill me?”

“Well… probably not? I dunno.” She scratches her head through the top of her harlequin cowl. “You can be a real pain sometimes, kid. That’s what I’m sayin’. Eventually, you’re gonna be too much of a pain and you’ll get dead. If the Bat really cared about you, he wouldn’t let you do any of this crime-fighting junk. It’s messing up your development. These are important formative years!”

“Oh my god, you’re  _ lecturing _ me.”

“Darn tootin’. You got any strong mother-figures? I think you lack appropriate male role models.”

Robin mirrors her and sits cross-legged, elbows on his knees. “You think Batman is a bad  _ role model _ ?”

“Righta-rooney.”

He stares at her for a full three seconds before saying, slowly, “Okay, I’m not gonna disagree with you exactly. From an outside perspective this is the  _ definition _ of child endangerment, except it comes off a bit hypocritical.” He flaps a hand in an upwardly direction. “Joker  _ actually _ kills people, Harley. And I know for a fact he roughs you up. Even scumbags like Two-Face and Marconi think he treats you like dirt.”

“Hey, kid, my man takes care of me. He makes me smile! Also, I’m a  _ grown adult _ who picked her man over a successful career of do-gooding and doctoring. I had options, ya know. I  _ picked _ this.” She knocks him on the head. “You ain’t even legal and Bat has ya out here chasing bad-guys. Should be ashamed. Betcha he’s raising you outside’a the cape bit, huh? How’s that fair? How that not manipulative?”

Robin rubs his head where she hit him.  “I was gonna do this with or without his permission. He just trained me.”

“He can’t stop you? He’s Batman. He stops everyone, even my puddin’. But he can’t tie you to a chair until you’re less stupid?”

“I can walk away from this whenever I want.”

“I can walk away from the Joker whenever I want.”

“Just because you think you can walk away doesn’t… make your relationship…” He squints at her. “I see what you’re doing. It’s not the same thing, me and Bats.”

“Whatever you say.”

“Joker hits you! He threw you out a window! He almost  _ killed _ you.”

“That was the Bat’s fault!”

“How?! He was upside down over a piranha tank! He’s never living that one down, by the way, thanks for that, but that was seriously messed up.”

“Yeah, yeah.” She waves a hand and starts to stand. “Look, I’m not taking relationship advice from the little boy in a cape. You dodged a bullet today. Literally. Maybe take that as a sign and get out?”

“Wait.” He starts to reach for her. “Don’t go back to –”

She twists at the waist and lunges, driving her full weight down against his shoulder. Robin’s not a big kid, even at seventeen – built lean and wiry, a bit wide at the shoulders but not grown yet. Must have startled him because he’s on his back with her switchblade under his throat before he gets out the rest of his sentence. She presses the edge in hard enough the skin under his jaw dimples under the pressure. He doesn’t move an inch. She thinks she can see his eyes through the lenses of his mask. Maybe a bit wider than they were before.

“Don’t underestimate a lady, kiddo.” She presses down a little harder. “I said I’ll kill you if I gotta.” Weird, she feels like she’s pressing hard enough to draw blood, but nothing runs from his neck. “Got it?”

“Okay.”

“I’m serious!”

“I believe you.” He means it. “But I wouldn’t kill you back.”

He  _ means _ it. Harley blinks. “You dumb, Bird-Brain? I just said I’ll cut your throat.”

“That’s fine. I just said I wouldn’t do it back. That’s all.”

She hovers momentarily. In this moment the multi-verse splits down the middle – in one she shoves down with her full weight and pulls that blade across his windpipe so hard it would turn his throat into a PEZ dispenser (even if it never could). In this universe she slowly stands up and steps back, grabbing the handle of her mallet as she backs away.  

“You’re crazy, Bird-Boy.”

He sits up. “See you next time?”

“Yeah, sure.”

 

* * *

 

“Okay, so that’s weird.”

“What’s weird?”

“It just… slides right off him.”

“What?”

“The spell. It slides. He’s a duck and this spell is water.” Zatanna pulls the elastic out of her pony tail and does it up again, tighter and higher. The Wayne boys are in her kitchen at 2AM, again, and honestly she’s earned the right to get a little flip with the older one. “Are you picking up what I’m putting down, Brucie?”

Bruce kind of levels this  _ look _ her way. Not judgmental exactly but just a little disappointed in her, as a person, as a magician, as whatever she might choose to be. She ignores that look because she’s accustomed to it and circles the lanky dark-haired teenager sitting on her small kitchen island. Counter clockwise, then clockwise. Kal’s eating a ham sandwich and reading a comic book. He has a stack of them, three hours’ worth of reading. He finishes off a Pepsi can and tosses it precisely into her trash bin across the room.

“It’s funny because… well, it’s clear magic works on him. That fiasco with Klarion…”

“That sucked.” Kal, his mouth full of sandwich, looks up from his comic. “Nightmare comas suck.”

“They do. It’s a good thing I was on speed dial and available to do something about it.” She takes a moment to go pour herself a mug of hot water and step into a pair of bunny slippers by the sink. “I’m seeing some patterns though, Bruce. Half of what I try just glances off him. The rest hits like lightening to a rod.”

“What does your father say?”

“Nothing because he’s walking the trails of some hoary nether-realm and has been for the last three months. Hence your coming to me.”

Bruce’s tone gentles. “That wasn’t a challenge to your talent, Zatanna.”

She winks over her tea mug. “I know. Kal, can you sit up straight?”

He does, beaming at her. He’s very cheerful for a kid she’s been casting minor hexes on for the last three hours – all blue eyes and bed-head and dimples and shit. He’s the kind of kid she would conjure sandwiches at 2AM for. Zatanna puts her mug down, picks her wand off the counter, and waves it vaguely in his direction. Simultaneous to this bit of showmanship, she pulls a small nuclear reactor’s worth of power from the ether (unseen and unfelt by anyone in the room but her) and attempts to turn the Boy Wonder’s eyes green. Kal blinks his big blue eyes, unaffected. Bruce, leaning against her dishwasher, frowns.

She waves a hand. “Neerg.”

Kal blinks his green eyes.

“Interesting.”

“I feel itchy,” Kal says, scratching. “Is that what you did?”

“No, but it’s weird you felt that…”

“Felt what?”

“Okay, I have a pretty solid working theory.” Zatanna claps her hands and the warding circle painted on her counter top vanishes. Free, Kal hops down from the counter and starts doing the dishes. “Oh, thank you, hon. Okay, so the spells that stick best are gonna be the big nasty stuff for now.”

“Reassuring,” says Bruce, his tone suggesting otherwise.

“Well, Bruce, you know this from training with my father, but big nasty magic tends to get… undiscriminating.” She waves a hand. “To really oversimplify: a spell usually is one of two things. It’s either powerful or its specific.” She sees Bruce start to open his mouth. “I know that’s not true across the board. I’m generalizing.  _ Hush _ . I’ve tried a couple spells a couple ways and so far this is what I’m coming up with: Kal is very susceptible to A: high level magic so next level it would wreck anyone… or B: low-level spellwork that describes him correctly.”

“You’re saying most of the magic users we’ve encountered aren’t describing Kal correctly?”

“Right. He’s not invulnerable to magic like we thought, he’s just hard to define. In spellwork, if you know exactly who you are casting against and can describe and define them in the most precise ‘language’…” Here she uses finger quotes with emphasis. “…a spell will stick. People think Kal-El is human and he’s not. That’s a very basic premise to get wrong in your casting parameters. ‘Of earth’ isn’t even right. Unless you have some idea that he’s not human and also not of this earth, you’re going to fuck up your diction, so to speak.

“So... I’m what?” Kal shrugs while drying a plate. “Undefinable?”

“No, you’re just unknown. That’s what’s protected you up until now. If someone realizes you’re not human, that’s close, but not  _ name _ powerful. If someone realizes you’re alien, but don’t know what kind, that’s closer but no cigar. If someone says “Kryptonian” that’s got some staying power. Short of using an actual given name, invoking that definition gets me the best mileage for the least amount of effort. Alarmingly little effort actually.”

“So it’s semantics.” Bruce gestures slightly. “Your average caster doesn’t know who or what Kal is.”

“Bingo.” She clicks with a finger gun. “I’ve tried castings with ‘Robin’ and ‘Clark Calvin Wayne’ and those stick a bit, but not anymore than your average pseudonym. Kal-El is his True Name. So barring an enemy knowing that name or his proper noun no shit species name, low level workers probably won’t be able to mess with him. Your mid-level and raw power users and magical phenomenon will probably wreck him though. I’m a bit worried. It’s  _ alarmingly _ easy.”

“Great,” says Kal, stacking the dishes neatly. “We found my weakness. It’s magic. That’s, like, simultaneously awesome and awful.”

Bruce shakes his handsome head. “Why is he so vulnerable?”

“I have no idea. I don’t know what the rules are for magic against extra-terrestrials, Bruce. It’s not in the magic handbook.”

“Zatanna.”

“Might be he doesn’t have species immunity built up.” She taps a finger against her chin. “The average human has some innate protections built in, ancient creation level stuff, chaos and god level stuff. Kal might not have that. Like... you know how he’s immune to earth viruses and bacteria for some reason? Maybe that’s not true of magic. Maybe he’s got no immune system for magic. Does that make sense?”

“For obvious reasons, that’s not acceptable.”

“When my dad gets back, he can work in some protection wards for Kal. Get him magic inoculated.” Zatanna meanders across the kitchen to loop an arm around Kal’s shoulders and poke him in the dimple. He squirms. “He’s secret right now, so in general that’s the best protection possible, but on the off chance someone gets something  _ definable _ on Kal, we’ll need to do some semi-regular spell work.”

“I’ll compensate you of course.”

“No need, except for the cost of material. We’re all family. And speaking of materials: Kal, can you run down to the corner store and pick up some salt? I’m all out.”

He ducks her arm. “On it.”

Once Kal’s through the door, Bruce eyes her. “That was a fairly transparent ruse.”

She folds her arms, head tilting. “I need to  _ talk _ to you.” When Bruce maintains his poker face, she leans forward slightly, dropping her voice. “And before Kal gets back and before you leave tonight. I wasn’t going to say anything, but I feel it’s appropriate to point out that if Klarion had hit you with the same spell, you’d both be psychic battery packs of despair for that little monster. As it is, Kal got hurt.”

“I know.”

“Tell him to stop being Robin. Forbid it.”

“And he will do it himself unsupervised and without backup.” Bruce continues to maintain his poker face. “Is that preferable?”

“This isn’t letting your kid drink in the house so you know where they are, Bruce.” Zatanna doesn’t quite raise her voice, but it’s getting there. “Klarion really  _ hurt _ him. He’s a tough kid. He’s probably one of the most emotionally stable individuals I’ve ever met, but that doesn’t make it okay.” She restlessly pulls the band from her hair again, fitting it around her wrist, muttering. “He’s bulletproof, not invincible and that’s saying nothing about the stuff he  _ sees _ while he’s on the street.”

“I don’t disagree. I would rather he walk away from being Robin, but not if he walks away to do something alone.”

“Bruce, he’s getting older. I thought… I honestly thought he’d do this for just a few months, get it out of his system, then do something else. It’s been over a year. I can’t keep pretending I support all of this. I want to protect Kal. That’s why I’m helping but don’t mistake this for approval. I know what a nightmare loop is like. I’ve been there.” Her tone contains things, primarily the memory of Kal in his tactical gear, screaming and thrashing, smashing craters into the pavement, his eyes glowing red-hot in their sockets, his alien soul snared between realities. “That is what happened to Kal because he was out there with you looking for trouble.”

“Again,” Bruce murmurs, “I don’t disagree.”

“Then make him stop. You can talk him down. I know you can. He respects you so much. You’re his whole world. If you ask him to stop then I know he will.”

“No, he won’t.”

“You’ve asked him?”

“Repeatedly. I’ve offered to let him run the charities for Wayne Enterprises, to fund any number of root-cause issues, to meet people and think-tanks that are actually trying to better the world as a whole, to do anything else to help the world other than fight street crime, but he won’t step away from it.”

Zatanna combs her fingers back into her hair, sighing. “Have you considered that it’s because he feels obligated to protect  _ you _ ? That if you would just stop –” He gives her another look, then one significantly less benign. “Don’t even  _ try _ that. This is Kal’s future we’re talking about. You won’t consider stepping away from being the Bat to keep Kal off the streets? Are you sure this isn’t self-serving? How many bad guys have you taken down because Kal was there? How many battles do you win because he’s always going to be there to swoop in?”

“Plenty, but I don’t need Kal there to fight my battles. I need him there to make sure he doesn’t try to fight bigger battles.”

“What?”

Bruce leans forward slightly. “What do you think of Kal?”

“Think of him?”

“Yes, what kind of person is he?”

“I think he’s a good kid. What does that have to do with anything?”

“He wants to help, Zatanna. He wants to help everyone, all the time, with everything. He’s also  _ incredibly _ physically powerful. He’s smart. He’s  _ young _ . If he decides what he really needs to do is save the entire world… I’m convinced he’ll try it.” His poker face seems less perfect now, or rather, telling in its persistence. “If Kal isn’t working with me, he’s going to do something really dangerous. I think he’ll go public if it ever occurs to him that it’s the right thing to do.”

“He knows…” Zatanna feels her throat tighten a little. “He knows he can’t…”

“I don’t think he sees it that way.” Bruce’s expression hardens a little. “He never really has. And the stronger and older he gets… if I don’t keep an eye on him, he might decide Gotham isn’t enough. At least when he’s with me, I know that danger. There’s very little in Gotham City than can hurt him, but if he exposes what he is to the world…” When Zatanna says nothing he goes on, softly. “You just gave a very persuasive argument why he’s safer when he’s secret. To keep him secret, he needs to stay Robin.”

“There’s something inherently fucked up about raising someone to be a lesser version of themselves for the sake of safety.”

“Do you trust the world to treat Kal-El well?”

The silence stretches on, stretches long enough she doesn’t feel she can interject again, like she’s admitted something.

“What kind of name is Robin anyway?”

Bruce shrugs one shoulder. “Robin is just the one that stuck. He wanted to be ‘Nightwing’ for a while, apparently that’s the translated name of some bird on Krypton, but that didn’t stick.”

“So it doesn’t mean anything? You were just being a jerk about his nickname?”

“It was that or Batling.”

“Jesus.”

“Or Batkid. He really didn’t like that one.”

She makes a fresh pot of tea while they wait for Kal to return.

* * *

 

“Hmm. I’ve found a stray bird.”

Robin, sitting cross legged at the edge of a roof, about to eat a burrito, pauses momentarily before looking over his shoulder. It’s not a strange moment exactly. It’s a bit windy up here and he’s got his hood up against the breeze. Without it, his hair tends to stick up like someone ran a balloon rapidly across the top of it. He’s got his mask on, so she can’t tell if he’s doing the slow blink she imagines he’s doing.

The Boy Wonder looks slowly at the burrito… then back at her. Based on his set up – parked overlooking a known gang-owned section of apartment buildings, soda and food on hand, she’d suppose he’s about to end his night’s patrol on something easy. She also wonders if Robin brings his own lunch on his vigilante outings or if there’s a burrito vendor that lets teenage do-gooders buy food at 4AM.

He offers her the untouched burrito. “Hungry?”

“So to speak. Where’s your boss?”

“Wow. Gross. Elsewhere. I’m off duty.” He takes a bite of burrito. “Are you gonna steal something tonight? Because, I’d really like it if you didn’t. Batman gets mad if I chase criminals on my own.”

“What if I don’t want to steal a single thing?”

“That would be a nice change of pace.”

“What if I want to play a little?”

“Batman is busy and didn’t he swear to cuff you to the nearest patrol car last time?” He keeps eating the burrito, but glances at her. Even with his hood up, she can tell he’s very, very aware of her proximity and how she’s smiling at him – fangs and all. When she doesn’t immediately leave his rooftop, he turns a little at the waist to face her properly. “He’s not here. Seriously. If you want to bother him, better luck next time.”

“You’re getting taller, aren’t you?”

“Huh?”

“It’s been a while since I got a proper look at you. You’re growing up. Soon you’re gonna fill that suit out in all the right places.”

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“What you’re doing.” He picks up his soda and take a swig from the can. It’s sweating slightly, suggesting he got it from a cooler recently. “I know you think it’s fun to annoy Batman and since he’s not here maybe messing with me instead is, like, a good substitute. But it’s not. And don’t think I won’t cuff you too, Catwoman.”

“Promise?”

“I’m underage.”

“And I’m kidding. You’re a real killjoy, kid.”

“I’m a  _ delight _ .” He keeps eating his burrito. “Wanna sit down?”

She does, pouting. “I feel like you’re not taking me seriously.”

“I do if you’re going to steal something, but unless you’re here to steal my soda, there’s not much to take up here.” He glances at her when she leans over slightly to examine what he’s eating. “Also, you and Bats need to stop flirting in front of the other bad guys. It’s super unprofessional and weird I mean, it was already difficult to take you guys seriously with you being Catwoman and him being  _ Bat _ man – hey!”

She takes a bite out of his burrito, making sure to hold his hand around it while she does so. “Mmm.” She makes a show of it, mostly because it visibly repulses the kid. “Is there an open food truck or…?”

“Yeah, two blocks down. I know the owner.”

“Of course you do.”

Robin sighs in the most teenagerly way possible. “So what’s up? You just passing through?”

“I was on my way to steal something, but I felt obligated to come say ‘hi’.”

“Are we on friendly chatting terms? I didn’t know.”

“No, it’s like when you’re dating someone and you have to be nice to their siblings. That’s our relationship. But with threats of handcuffs.”

“You pushed Batman off a building and lit his car on fire recently. I don’t think you’re dating.”

“We’re not, but you’re still adorable.”

He sighs. “You’re incredibly weird.”

She plucks at his hood. “Says the boy in a cape and cowl.”

“Batman would be mad at me for talking to you, you know.”

“Batman is a drag.”

“Then stop making out with him?”

“I make him less of a drag.”

“Gross.”

“Are the two of you related?” She tries to tap his chin, just to see if he’ll let her but he evades her hand like a recalcitrant cat avoids petting. She grins. “You kind of have his frown when you disapprove of things.”

“None of your business. And besides, we look nothing alike – Are you  _ smelling _ me?”

“Yes.” She leans in, inhaling. “Is that one of Ivy’s…?”

He twitches his cape away from her. “No!”

“That’s sap and chemicals. You’ve been killing mutant plants tonight.”

“No, I haven’t!”

Selina grins. “Are you fighting super villains without Batman’s supervision?  _ Naughty _ .”

“Oh my god. Shut  _ up _ . I just happened to catch her doing… stuff. So I stopped her.”

“You know…” She props her chin in one hand, enjoying the Boy Wonder’s squirm. “The bad guy gossip circuit says her toxins don’t work on you. She swears up and down she lip-locked you a full dose and nothing happened. I’d say she’s lying, but she doesn’t have the  _ capacity _ when she’s in a full man-hate rant and she’s very,  _ very _ smart.” She leans in closer. He leans away in equal measure. “So how come you’re immune?”

“I wear a lot of makeup.” He says this utterly deadpan. “Can’t you tell? Not my fault her poison doesn’t get through my setting powder.”

“I’ll loan you a bit of my lipstick if you like.”

“That’s nice of you. But red is really not my shade.”

“I think you could work the primary colors.”

“Black is slimming.”

“There’s something strange about you, Boy Wonder.” Selina smiles, a full smile, the one that looks less like a smile and more like bared fangs and a promise. “You walk like you’re bigger than you are. You  _ move _ wrong. There’s little things I see but mostly I see how Batman treats you. He doesn’t look out for you.” Robin has to physically scoot away from her now, she’s leaning so close, but she follows, maintaining the intimate distance until he has to brace his weight with one hand. “And I know him well enough to know he’s not cruel and he cares about you and yet he doesn’t protect you in the field like I would protect something I love.”

“Back off. This isn’t funny.”

“There’s something about you.” She raises one hand, hovering near his face. “I just can’t quite—” she places the tip of one claw against his cheek – “put my finger on it.”

Robin chooses this moment to avoid the conversation entirely by jumping off the building and swinging himself to the next roof on the end of his grapple. Catwoman lets him do this without protest and estimates that inducing a boy to jump off a rooftop to avoid her may be one of her most esteemed but petty accomplishments this month.

Selina picks up the rest of his abandoned burrito. “Kids these days.”

 

* * *

 

“HOW?!”

“He drinks milk,” says Batman as Robin throws a two-hundred-pound gun-runner over his shoulder for the third time. After said mook is airborne and well on his way to landing in an open dumpster across the way, he gives Robin a side-glance. “You need to be subtler.” There’s a significant crash and what sounds like whimpering from the dumpster. “I don’t want them coming after you in particular.”

“Subtlety doesn’t get the job done as fast.” Robin sounds entirely too proud of himself and misses the way Batman looks at him when he says it, sharply, with a sudden total focus. “ _ What _ ?”

“This is precisely the reason I tell you to hang back.”

“I feel like there are other reasons and we’ve talked about them.”

“Eventually, they might detect I’m being disingenuous about the added health benefits of milk and I can only say that with a straight face so many times.”

“When have you ever  _ not _ maintained a perfectly straight face in your whole life?” Batman gives him a look. Robin points at it. “See? You’re doing it right now.”

“Get in the car.”

“To the Batmobile!”

“Don’t call it that.”

“Away!” He darts off, cape flapping in a way that clearly annoys his partner indescribably.

Batman watches him go for a moment… then says, “You can come on out, Detective.”

Renee Montoya – twenty-eight, five foot ten, dark featured, dressed in sensible black running shoes and overcoat – emerges from behind a parked sedan, Beretta in hand. “How long did you know I was there?”

“Since you responded to the call from dispatch ten minutes ago.” Batman, in person, sounds like he’s sorta growling all the time. Up close, she picks up the dry smell of the Kevlar-knit material in his uniform, second-hand cigarette smoke, and the faintest hint of what might be shaving cream. Reminding her, again, that she is indeed talking to a man who might get up in morning (or evening) and do something about stubble. “The gun,” he continues, “is under the green Cadillac. You’ll likely find it matches the ballistics from the double homicide last Tuesday.”

Familiarity bred of long-time police work in Gotham has made Detective Montoya immune to the absurdity of talking to the Bat. She holsters her weapon (because she’s picked up on the fact he doesn’t like guns, however unconscious) and comes to join him in staring at said dumpster.

“I’d tell you to get off our police radio if it didn’t make me feel better knowing you’re listening.” Montoya frowns at dumpster from which the gun-runner is not extracting himself and concludes that said perp will not be rising without aid from his smelly confines. “Thanks for the tip off on Berko.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Of course not. Weird how all your favorite detectives get the best anonymous tips.  _ Anyway _ , tell the kid that he needs to stop hanging people from light posts. Gordon got you to stop doing that when you started out and now he’s picking up your lousy habits.”

“I’ll tell him to tone it down.”

“And tell him that Sergeant Lee is back. Full recovery. He wants to give your boy a Christmas card.” She squints. “Would Robin accept a Christmas card?”

“He would be  _ thrilled _ with a Christmas card.” Bats sounds unfathomably disappointed about this fact.

“Yeah, he’s a cheerful little jerk, isn’t he?”

“He has his moments.”

She sighs at the dumpster, not looking forward to the extraction. “I figure you’ve got a complicated reason for taking the kid on as a partner or whatever. Maybe he needs someone to rein him in. Maybe he’s got issues that aren’t obvious to me. But at some point, you’ll have to tell me how a someone as cheery as Robin ends up running around with your gloomy—” she looks over her shoulder “—ass.” The Bat is, of course, gone. “Capes. At least the kid says ‘bye’ before he runs off.”

 

* * *

 

“WHY ARE WE  _ FLYING _ !?!?”

“I – uh – I don’t –”

Harley seizes two fistfuls of Robin’s shredded cape, uses it to shake him. “ _ YOU’RE _ FLYING!”

“Uh.”

She howls. “ _ YOU CAN FLY _ ?!”

“I mean… well…”

“YOU COULD FLY THIS  _ WHOLE FRIGGIN’ TIME _ ?!”

And here’s the thing, the really absurd, bizarre and totally ridiculous thing about the Boy Wonder – the literal and actual Boy Wonder, the one floating fifteen stories up in the smoke-smeared wind like the air aint got nothing on him, like gravity can’t get its claws in his bones – he looks more scared in this moment than Harley’s ever seen the little bastard. Below them: fire, chemical fumes and smoke rises slowly from the cratered blast zone below. The molten wreckage glows hell-fire orange through the swirling black beneath them. She doesn’t look down though, she notes these details in the peripheral. She’s keeping her eyes on Robin’s face because if she does not then she’s going to look down.

“Um, would you believe I have an anti-gravity device in my utility belt?”

She grips his collar more securely, fingers knotting into the thick Kevlar-weave. “Fly me around.”

“I – what?”

“Fly. Me. A. Round.”

“I shouldn’t. We should probably just –”

“Kid, my puddin’ set off a bomb with me in the building. I’m gettin’ the impression that Mista Jay might not be the man for me. Okay? So wouldya do a girl a solid and just do that bit from Aladdin for a sec?”

It’s about three minutes into their flight that her heart stops doing the can-can. Bird-boy doesn’t seem to have a problem holding her full adult weight bridal style, despite the fact he’s skinny and just a hair shorter than she is on the ground. She keeps one arm hooked securely around the nape of his neck just in case. He does loops over the outskirts of Gotham City until she settles into a post-traumatic slump, head pillowed against his shoulder until the adrenaline thins. The kid smells like a chemical fire. His face looks like he stuck it in a fireplace hearth.

Eventually, he drifts to set her gently down on the flat roof of an apartment building then lands himself, alighting so carefully his boots only just scrape the concrete as gravity takes hold again. He looks sooty and young. The blast vaporized his uniform from fingertips to shoulders and laid bare a large contour of his ribs down his left flank. Where it didn’t burn away, it melted, fusing to his skin, then peeling away, leaving no mark at all. His hair sticks straight up, like lightning struck him. He looks so dumb.

She rubs a thumb-print of black from his cheek and leaves a small clean smudge.

“You got something just… there.”

“Oh…” Half his mask is burned off. He momentarily frets about what to do about this, then gives it up as a bad job and peels the strip of polymer flex-mesh from his cheekbone and brow. He blinks a few times, then tosses the little domino mask, a pale band of clean skin around one eye. “Okay, I guess it doesn’t really matter at this point…”

“I can’t even see through all that soot, honestly. You look like a muddy Dalmatian.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Kid, I watched that first bomb go off right in your face. You were literally holding it in your hands.” She laughs, rubbing at her eyes. “Why’d you do that? You had to know that he wouldn’t miss a chance to kill one of you. Even if I was…” She sniffs. “You know… still in the room.”

“I’m so sorry, Harley.”

“Why? You didn’t do anything wrong.” She hiccups and rubs her eyes harder. “Y-you’re a real boy scout. Who cares what Bats says a-about your powers or whatever. I mean, I’m pretty glad ya used them to – sorry, hold on.” She sobs once, smearing her make up. She forces a smile. “I’m glad ya found me!”

He hugs her.

“Oh.” Harley bites her lip, feels something expand in her chest like a balloon, gumming up her throat. “So,” she says, blinking through the tears. “You can fly. That’s neat.” The tears are dripping into his burned and shredded cape. She raises her arms, uncertainly at first, then fits her palms against his shoulder blades. Robin’s still not a very big guy. He’s just a kid still. Harley gives it up and loops her arms around him and squeezes until her arms hurt and her heart kind of implodes in her chest and she thinks how nice it would be if he used some of his super strength and crunched her up too. Her voice comes out muffled by his shoulder. “You wanna talk about it?”

“Sure.” He squeezes her gently. “It might be nice to tell someone about it.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading. :) Comments and feedback make my brain go round.


	5. Chapter 5

Wayne family problems always happen at 2AM.

Zatanna gets the call on her cell in Athens and it takes her a full minute to register the buzzing before she rolls over and paws her phone from the nightstand. Scraping her hair form her face, she squints at the name on the phone. Private line, proxy number. She checks the time and figures there’s still only one person who would call at 2AM her time.

“Bruce? Is that you?”

“He went public.”

She hangs up.

Thirty seconds later she drops onto Bruce Wayne’s kitchen island in Gotham, bare feet slapping the two-hundred grand black-marble countertop. Her hair crackles, a writhing nest of post-teleportation static and half-grounded etherium. Her eyes, she knows, have the fairy-light glow of a woman riding wild and uncontrollable forces dimension to dimension. Point of fact, that kind of chaos suits her and the static roar in her blood just now. Chaos suits her fine. She understands the appeal of it, standing there, lit up from the inside. Panic in her teeth.

Bruce looks at the tangled sorceress crouching half-dressed on his kitchen counter, he just says, calmly, “Do you need a bathrobe?”

She’s in shorts and a crop top. She hops off the counter, ignoring him. “Where’s Kal?”

“Metropolis.” He unmutes two mid-sized televisions mounted on the wall by the sink and another by the bar. One is Metropolis Daily, the other CNN. The scroll bar reads: _super-human hero saves hundreds._ “Suspension bridge collapse. He’s currently _holding the bridge in place_ while everyone evacuates. He’s been there for three hours now. Every news network on the globe is re-casting the live coverage.”

“Metropolis. So he didn’t go far.”

“I wouldn’t say that.” Bruce has his laptop open on the counter and pulls up a dozen news articles in various languages, no photos except of what appear to be blurry phone camera stills. “This is the first time he’s slowed down enough to be caught on film, but based on his speed and eye-witness accounts, they’re linking him to series of similar interventions all over the world. Disaster interventions mostly. I think he’s been operating internationally until now. He’s doing exactly what I told him not to do.”

“What’s the damage?”

“So far? His face is all over global news.”

“My god. He’s not a wearing a mask?”

“No. As far as I can tell, he’s wearing some kind of uniform based on his family colors and house crest.”

“Are you kidding me?”

Bruce says nothing. So she looks at the footage.

“Holy shit, you’re not kidding. He’s wearing primary colors. Why does he have a cape? Why is it bright red? What the fuck?”

“Either habit or tactics. If the material is bulletproof like the material from his Robin uniform, then he might be using it to protect civilians.”

“How is he funding this? Did he access his trust?”

“No. He hasn’t accepted anything from me since…” He glances at her. “Since he left. I assume he’s found employment.”

“But not as Clark Wayne.”

“Not that I’ve found. But he knows how to forge documents as well as Alfred does. If he wants to, he can be anyone.”

“Where is he now?”

“Still under the Grandcross Bridge. Rescue and construction personnel are approaching now, but as far as I can tell he’s having no trouble holding position.”

“How is he holding the whole bridge? I don’t doubt he’s strong enough, but he’s too small to just –”

“The five of the suspension cables along the right side of the bridge seem to have snapped. The bridge was going lopsided, cars sliding into the river. He’s just leveling it out. You’re right though. It’s collapsing. He’s a single load-bearing point where there were five. The civil engineers are trying to get close enough to talk to him, I believe.”

“No lives are in danger?”

“No. But…”

“Breaking news,” says the television. “We’re cutting to a live feed from the crisis at the Metropolis Grandcross Bridge. Fire and rescue personnel have deployed a rescue drone to open communication with the meta-human currently holding up the remains of the now highly unstable Grandcross suspension bridge. Live momentarily.”

Alfred, from the kitchen door where he’s just arrived, says, “Bloody hell.”

On the television screen a slightly wobbling drone camera cuts a path toward the belly of the suspension bridge. In the feed, you can hear the whine of the little turbine motors as it zips through the dust toward a blue and red figure braced like Atlas beneath the bridge. The drone flits uncertainly for a moment, buffeted by wind and for a moment captures a turbulent image of Kal Wayne – changed remarkably in just two years, but also not, not at all changed, but different nonetheless – looking slightly to the left and blinking at the little drone.

He follows it with his eyes as the camera swings in a way to frame his face, zooming in. his eyes in the camera are… frighteningly blue, alien blue, almost colorless and iridescent. Zatana’s never seen him do that with his eyes and in that moment, staring into the camera, expression curious and faintly distracted, she thinks the world’s going to change. This is the face of things to come. Something shivers through her, an old primal kind of shudder, deeper than physical… archetypical and ancient. Like every ley line in the world just hummed.

On TV, a loud speaker crackles, barely loud enough to hear over the drone’s motor.

“This is Kathy Motomori of Metropolis Fire and Rescue.” Live captions scroll across the bottom of the screen. Kal shifts his shoulders slightly against the concrete above him, his palms spread flat against the stone. “Are you in danger, sir?”

He blinks. “ _Oh_! No. I’m fine.” A pause. “Thanks!”

“Jesus,” says Zatana.

Bruce has one hand on the counter next to him and it becomes a fist instead. On screen Kal shakes dust from his hair and says, loudly, “Everyone is clear of the bridge now right? Do you need me to keep holding it up or should I let it go?”

There’s a momentary pause from the other side. “My engineers are saying the bridge won’t last even with your help. It’s going to come apart on top of you. We’re recommending you try to get clear. Can you do that without our aid? Do you need assistance? My people are willing to come in.”

“No, no! Don’t send anyone!” He shakes his head slightly and a single dark curl of hair gets free from his bangs, coiling against his brow. Zatana doesn’t know it right then, but that’s the image that’s going to go around the world. “I’m okay. I can get clear on my own.”

“Then good luck, son. Get out of there safe. Understood?”

“Understood, ma’am.”

The drone wobbles and withdraws, pulling back but continuing to zoom in on Kal as he glances up at the massive shelf of stone he’s bracing… then rolls up so he’s bracing his hands and feet against it, creating the optical illusion of being stuck to the bottom of the bridge, his cape flapping gently beneath him. Then, lightly, he pushes off and floats free beneath. The bridge holds, but in the feed the crack and groan of steel instantly fills the audio. The camera pulls back, zooming away as the bridge buckles and falls. Kal watches it for a moment. Then he notices the camera now watching him and looks, momentarily, flummoxed about the attention.

He decides on a kind of half-wave, half-salute kind of thing. Then he turns in midair and throws one arm forward as if into some kind of forward stoke and arcs with that familiar thoughtless momentum into the free air over the Metropolis River. Then the sound barrier breaks in the distance. The camera screen beholds nothing but empty sky.

“Welp,” says Zatana.

“Goodness,” says Alfred.

“…” says Bruce.

From the door, just behind Alfred, Dick Grayson – still in his pajamas, frazzled with bedhead, all of fifteen, dark-haired and thrilled – says, “ _Cool_.”

 

* * *

 

“The President official gave Superman the Medal of Freedom today for his actions during Hurricane Roger.”

Bruce says nothing.

“He’s ducking my tracer spells by the way.” Zatana takes a seat on the desk, moving Bruce’s files aside to make room. “I’ve tapped a few sources in the magical communities and a handful of them say they’re passingly familiar with someone matching Kal’s description but no one linked him to any of the traceable Superman events. Lois Lane did a pretty bang up job with the international angle. They’re saying Superman’s saved the lives of about five-hundred people and counting just this last year and that’s the incidents people have come forward with.”

Bruce says nothing.

“Bruce, I’m sure he’ll come back at some point and not for nothing, he _is_ bulletproof and mostly magic proof.”

Bruce says, “Kal is an adult now. He can do as he likes.”

Zatana says, “Obviously, but he’s still your little brother. You’re allowed to worry.”

“His approach is reckless and dangerous and literally everything I warned him not to do.”

“He’s insanely popular, well-loved by everyone, and he hasn’t told a soul that he’s an alien. He just keeps insisting he’s nice city boy who want to help. A nice _American_ city boy by golly-gee raised right here wherever here is I won’t commit but hell I’m sure just like you, boss. He’s really good at that. His blandish is excellent. Lookit me, folks, I’m just so adorable blue-eyed relatable and cute. I saved a puppy today. I played baseball with a bunch of kids in Bangladesh. There’s a hundred blogs dedicated to how cute my butt is in my weird uniform that is definitely armor, but no one is talking about it.”

“Just because he’s good at getting people to like him, doesn’t mean he’s safe.”

“Obviously not, but he’s doing the absolute best that he can with the option that he’s taken. He’s _popular_ Bruce. You can get away with _murder_ if you’re popular and there’s precedent for it. You have that Flash guy in Star City. That Green Arrow person. You… kind of… you’re pretty popular in Gotham for a dude everyone thinks is demonic sewer monster.”

“It’s Gotham,” says Bruce, like that explains it.

Zatana picks up her tea and sips.

“Look, Gotham loves two things: Its football team and Batman. Therefore, Batman gets away with a lot. Keeping that mind, Metropolis loves two things –”

“Being owned by a libertarian asshole and over-priced sushi?”

“No, Bruce – is that thing? Stop distracting me! They love being progressive and they love Superman. Okay? If Metropolis likes Superman than a good portion of the country follows. _Daily Planet_ says they like him, then most of the internet says they like him. Metropolis may be owned by a libertarian douchebag, but even Lex Luthor knows to pretend to be progressive and likeable. His blandish is right up there with Kal’s.”

“Yes, there’s a comfort. Lex fucking Luthor talking to Kal-El.”

“Right, because Superman totally didn’t graffiti his pent-house office window last week with vague implications that Lex is a capitalist monster.”

Bruce smiles. Like, not with his mouth, but it’s there. Zatana can see it.

“See, and the beauty of it is Lex can try to take legal action but he won’t because it’s political suicide. Kal know what he’s doing. He’s smart and capable and has an IQ over one-forty and an interest in communications. He’s Metropolis’ favorite son right now. He’s America’s favorite son. You know how I can tell he’s going to be the biggest thing since sliced bread? He’s just a little bit brown and he openly spoke fluent Cantonese in front of cameras and people aren’t trying to nuke him out of the sky. That’s how I know he’s reached the adoration nadir necessary to survive the public. Okay?”

“You can stop trying to comfort me, Zatana. I know you have better things to do.”

“Better things to do than hang out in your mansion and eat your fancy toast?”

“How can toast be fancy?”

“I dunno, man, but you do it.”

“I’ve accepted that Kal is going to do as he likes. I don’t have to like it, but it’s how it is.”

“It’s been nearly a year since he came out as Superman.” Zatana taps a nail meaningfully against the side of her mug. “You could try to get in contact with him you know.”

Bruce says, “I figure he’ll do that himself.”

Zatana says, “Ugh. You’re both children.”

And Dick, who’s been hiding in the rafters in the dining room says, “So am I gonna get to meet him finally or what?”

“Get down from there. What did I tell you about –!”

 

* * *

 

Six months later a giant albino mohawked dude on a space-faring motorcycle shows up in Metropolis.

Then he beats Superman within an inch of his new superheroing life.

Jimmy Olsen, armed with a smart phone camera and more balls than his resume would grant him, captures most of the carnage on a Facebook livesteam where the hulking alien tries to tear Metropolis’ golden boy limb from limb. In later interviews, Jimmy would admit that he and Superman have a rapport and most of why he stayed was simply because he couldn’t bring himself to leave while Big Blue was fighting for his life. Something, he was certain, Superman had never had to do before.

The world gets a first-hand look at intelligent non-terrestrial lifeforms as one tries to curb stop Superman’s skull open in the middle of Broadway Avenue. Then it gets to watch as said lifeform hurls him into the ground with enough force to break the sound barrier. They watch intelligent alien life rip Kal’s cape from his shoulders, watch it kick him in the ribs, try to strangle him, gouge his invincible blue eyes out and get their thumbs lasered off for their efforts. (Oh, yes, Superman has laser eyes. No one knew that. Now everyone knows that.)

Then the whole world gets to watch Superman do something like panic and beat this monster into a crater with the wreackage of its own motorcycle. Then they get to watch him grab and hurl this alien out of the stratosphere with enough power to splinter the ground beneath him like plaster and send the beast rocketing out of Earth’s atmo. Jimmy Olsen’s smart phone camera captures the moment of aftermath where Superman stands there, uniform torn, blood running from his nose and mouth, staring anxiously into the sky and breathing hard, breathing like his ribs are fractured. Jimmy Olsen’s smart phone camera transmits, live, the moment where Superman collapses to one knee, then collapses entirely and –

Jimmy Olsen, dropping his camera, crying, “Oh my god! Supes?! Superman, are you –?”

Before the feed cuts.

 

* * *

 

“Look, I’m just saying he’s not that mad at you.”

Dick Grayson, eighteen, wearing a pair of sunglasses with his boots up on the spare chair next to him – he’s got an ice cream cone in one hand and he thinks the whole thing is kind of dumb.

Across from him: Superman in a blue button-up and jeans, blinking at him from behind a pair of un-convincing thick-rimmed glasses. He’s got an untouched basket of fires and a burger in front of him. It pleases Dick just a little bit to note that at eighteen he’s already about Kal-El’s height if not quiet his build. Not, mind you, that Superman has many options in body building and it’s sort of ridiculous to compare physiques when one of them (not him) can pick up a bus and throw it across the country.

The point: Kal doesn’t look very intimidating sitting in a burger joint with an anxious look on his face.

“It’s been almost three years.”

The July sun curves a scorching path into the mid-day sky. It’s pretty hot.

Dick adjusts his sunglasses and says, “Look, Kal. I get that you guys had some big falling out or whatever, but at the end of the day you’re both being huge assholes and should just talk to one another. Zatana says so. Alfred says so. I say so and I’m the guy who’s doing your old job so I feel like I have special permission to tell you to suck it up and stop being weird about it. You weren’t weird about talking to me and I expected you to be a lot weirder in person. So you have no excuse.”

Kal looks genuinely curious. “Why would you think I’d be weird in person?”

“I dunno. You’re so good in front of a camera I thought you might be a little strange when you turn off the whole All American Alien shtick. Any particular reason you try to come off like a home-grown suburbanite when you’re a Gotham kid?”

“Technically, I was raised internationally for most of my childhood, I’m an alien, and mid-western accents are practically un-detectible to anyone not looking for it?”

“Solid call. Solid call. Anyway, you’re not weird.”

Kal looks wry. “Thanks, I try. Look, Dick, I appreciate what you’re trying to say, but I’m not sure if you understand… the history with Bruce and me.”

“Says who? I’m great at understanding. I’ve also been living with Bruce for the better part of three years so, like, try me.”

“Well, first of all, I’m an alien that landed in his backyard when he was sixteen and he decided to adopt me.”

“Yes, he has impulse control problems in that area. I’ve noticed.”

“My childhood was weird.”

“I grew up in the circus and then signed on to be Boy Wonder Two Point Oh. My childhood was also weird. What is it you’re worried I won’t understand?”

“I don’t know… so much of how I was raised was based around this… It’s weird. I am bulletproof. Literally, I’m one of the toughest living things on the planet, but my whole childhood was a lot of fear and hyper-vigilant measures to make sure I was safe. Now, I’m just… it’s like a threw all that away. I feel like a bastard sometimes. Ungrateful I guess? But I don’t regret it. Not… not at all. Not even a little bit and I feel like that’s the part that’s going to make it impossible to talk about.”

“You know how stupidly noble that sounds right? You’re like an afterschool special.”

“Grayson,” he says in this tone that has this low sub-tonal quality that literally makes the air shiver.

“Okay, so you’re afraid you’ll have to defend your decisions to him and he’s going to be judgmental and disapproving, basically? Because, that’s kind of what dads are there for.”

“He’s not my dad.”

“Right.”

Kal looks uncomfortable. “He was always really clear on that point, actually.”

“Oh. Sorry. What I meant is you are family at the end of the day.”

“I know…”

“Jeez, this is really eating at you. What specifically do you think will happen? Worst scenario.”

“I tell him I regret nothing that I’ve done and by extension he takes that to mean everything he ever did for me was pointless and all the work he does is also pointless and he basically realizes he raised a totalitarian monster that rejects all his personal axioms?”

Dick lowers his sunglasses slightly to _stare_ at him over the rims.

Kal looks, thankfully, embarrassed. “Worst case scenario! I literally did the exact thing he raised me _not_ to do and I just don’t see how he’s going to forgive me for that.”

“Because you’re his little brother and he loves you. Wow. That was easy. Let’s go to Gotham right now.”

Kal jerks a little when Dick makes a mock-move to stand up and that tiny fear response makes Dick feel just a little bad. He sits back down.

“You honestly think he’s not going to forgive you for going out on your own?”

“He has strong opinions about things.”

“He’s also just a dude with a thing for Vantablack.”

“You wouldn’t be scared to disobey him?”

“Are you kidding? Petrified. But I’d still do it if I really believed it and, honestly, I think as long as you’re not drowning puppies in buckets or getting a mullet he’ll probably respect what you did.” Dick shrugs. “I mean, it’s hard to argue with the results.”

Kal looks skeptical.

“I’m not saying he won’t be a huge tool about it at first, maybe, but he’ll get over it. Seriously. Just… reach out. I don’t think he’s going to do it because he thinks you… want it this way or something. I can tell you don’t so just fix it. Or at least try. You’re Superman. You can’t possibly tell me it’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done.”

Kal almost smiles. “I’m really glad you signed on to be Robin Two Point Oh.”

“Okay, well, don’t spread it around but I’ll probably upgrade from that pretty quick here.”

“You’re thinking about leaving?”

“I’m eighteen. I’ll have to leave eventually.”

“And… the rest of it?”

“You mean the cape and cowl?” He frowns. “I mean… I think I’ll always want to do that. Just not… not in Gotham forever. And I can’t be Robin somewhere else; I think that’s a really specific role. Look, it’s just something I’m tossing around. You left. I can leave. It’s just the normal progression of things.”

Kal thinks about it. “You picked out a name yet?”

Dick blinks behind his glasses. “No. Why?”

“I might have a suggestion.”

 

* * *

 

It was, perhaps, inevitable that it would happen this way.

Or that’s what he’s thinking while he’s falling from 10,000 feet up, every on-board system fried, auxiliary flight components shredded, the dark terrain racing up to meet him. He goes through possible scenarios. Anything and everything he could do to prevent slamming into the planet at terminal velocity and he’s got nothing. The sky above him: a rolling orange swath of flame, the steel monolith coming apart in continental shards of alien alloy. The mechanism of mass destruction slicing a fiery path toward the ocean.

Even if he could fly, he’s not sure he could get clear of the wreckage – likely to fall miles around.

His armor’s melted in places – fused to his ribs, his right thigh, his boots have melted at the sole. The pain is… intense actually. Intense enough he’s a little relieved it’s probably going to stop very soon. The wind in his ears roars. Through the roar, his comm still just barely crackles with Dick’s voice, frantic and far away, saying his name (is that really his name?) over and over again from too far away to help.

His primary regret: Dick is going to watch him die on fucking monitor.

“It’s fine,” he says, which is fucking stupid of course.

“ _No_!”

“You’re going to be fine, Dick.”

These are the worst last words in the history of last words. He just doesn’t know what else to say, the earth rushing up as it is, so fast he’s not going to be able to speak. Bruce rolls into a para-trooper flat, belly down, arms and legs out, facing the growing ridge of the mountain that, it appears, will be his final destination. The comm’s damaged. Dick is saying something. He can’t make it out and he’s not sure why that – not the screaming air, not the pain, not the inevitable end – is getting to him. Seconds before his death and all he can think is he’d trade anything to hear what Dick is trying to say.

There’s static now.

There’s no one with him for this part.

That’s fine.

It’s fine.

Really.

It’s…

The mountain below him suddenly snaps. It vanishes. There’s a bright primary blur that baffles his eyes before snapping back into focus and, like a glitch in the universe, Kal-El is between him and the earth. His eyes: wide, colorless blue, inhuman in their hue and containing every human fear possible. He’s moving at terminal velocity, backwards, propelled by the mysterious gravitational forces that live in his Kryptonian physiology. He’s wearing his uniform. Superman – flying exactly fast enough to be exactly within arms’ reach, face to face with Batman as he falls.

He’s shouting something.

Bruce throws his arms out at the same moment Kal grabs for him, seizes his elbows and pulls him into his chest. Bruce feels three of his ribs crack when Kal miscalculates the speed, slams into him with enough force to stun. He doesn’t have the air to scream as Kal balls around him and pitches, hard, right. His arms cage him like a roll bar in a flipping car. The G-force briefly curdles his brain, dark edges closing. His teeth in his skull seem set to explode. Lungs crushed, surrounded by a splintering construct of calcium.

Then it stops. Planes out. Bruce opens his eyes and the sky is framed by trees, the hole in the canopy of evergreens. The ground underneath him smells of pine and shredded earth, a Superman shaped crater in the forest floor. He must have blacked out for the impact. Kal is looking down at him with a panic in his face that steals all his adult years and Bruce sees him – five years old, stuck on that goddamn bunker ceiling.

“Bruce! Bruce?! Are you okay?”

He grunts. Gets his breath.

“Sloppy catch.”

Kal stares.

Bruce grimaces and sits up. “We practiced that about a hundred times in the Philippines.”

Kal _stares_.

“If you don’t learn how to match velocity in mid-air, you can’t expect to save civilians from –.”

Kal moves forward and hooks both arms around Bruce’s shoulders and silently buries his face against his shoulder.

Bruce hesitates… then loops one arm around Superman’s back, palm flat against his shoulder blades.

“Nice of you to drop by,” Bruce says.

Kal laughs. “Dick said I should.”

“You couldn’t call me before alien warships are flying over Gotham?”

“You couldn't call  _me_ before you pick a fight with an alien warship?”

"I don't have your number."

"Dick has my number. You have my number if you wanted my number."

Bruce sighs, pressing a hand into his ribs. “Any chance of flying out of here that isn’t you carrying me bridal style?”

 “Not really. You crashed the Bat Jet into the side of their ship.”

“It’s not called the ‘Bat Jet’. It’s just a jet.”

“Dick says it’s the Bat Jet and he also says, you still call the car ‘The Batmobile’. So…”

Bruce glares.

“Are you glaring? I can’t tell with the new cowl. Is that, like, a heavy combat version or…?”

“I’m glaring.”

“Okay. Thought so. You know you can admit I'm good at naming things.”

“Unbelievable.”

“I’m just saying.”

“You should have let me drop into the goddamn mountain.”

“Batmobile. Trademark: Superman.”


End file.
